The former Secretary of State for the Treasury who was in charge of TAP when the company signed the termination agreement with Alexandra Reis, guarantees that the existence of any compensation payment was never referred to the then administrator of the airline.
Miguel Cruz was responsible for TAP in the Ministry of Finance and was the one who negotiated the restructuring plan of the airline in the European Commission. In clarification provided to the Observer, he guarantees that he never spoke with TAP’s financial manager, Gonçalo Pires, about the reasons for Alexandra Reis’s departure, contrary to what was mentioned this Thursday in an article by the SIC.
The aforementioned article says that the then Secretary of State was surprised by the manager’s departure, having informally questioned the CFO of TAP on the matter. SIC adds that the existence of compensation was not mentioned in the conversation. Al Observador Miguel Cruz says that he never spoke to TAP’s financial administrator about the reasons for Alexandra Reis’s departure and “much less did he refer to the existence of compensation,” stressed the official who is currently president of Infraestruturas de Portugal. .
The former Minister of Finance, João Leão, also publicly guaranteed this Thursday that he had not been informed of the agreement made by TAP for the departure of Alexandra Reis and that it involved the payment of compensation of half a million euros. These statements came after the resignation of the Minister of Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, and his Secretary of State, Hugo Mendes.
The finance ministry exercises joint supervision of TAP with the infrastructure ministry, but those responsible for the ministry in February, when TAP negotiated early termination with Alexandra Reis, deny having any knowledge of the process. Last night, the Ministry of Finance also affirmed that Fernando Medina was unaware of the agreement and compensation when he invited Alexandra Reis to be Secretary of State for Finance, the same portfolio that Miguel Reis held in the previous Government of António Costa.
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These statements will have isolated the guardianship of Infrastructures (maintained by the minister and the Secretary of State in the current Government) contributing to the decision known hours after Pedro Nuno Santos left office after the resignation of his Secretary of State. In the statement justifying his departure, the minister admits that he was aware of the existence of the exit agreement, which in fact he had authorized TAP to promote, but not its contours, namely the value, which were validated by Hugo Mendes without informing the joint supervision of the Treasury, judging by the statements of João Leão and Miguel Cruz.
Source: Observadora
