There are reasons to dismiss the Ombudsman and the board of directors of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Lisbon (SCML) and it was management and not political reasons that led the Government to this decision, assured the Minister of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security , Rosário Palma Ramalho, in an interview with RTP, in which he assumed that Santa Casa is in a difficult situation and that, therefore, the next supplier will have a financial profile.
The team is under management until the new board of directors is appointed because, stated the minister, “it is an obligation of every person who performs public functions and There is no doubt that they are public functions”. “The place of the ombudsman and the board are designated by the prime minister and the responsible minister. Therefore, he exercises public functions. “SCML is an institution whose public role is absolutely undeniable and recognized and, therefore, is obliged to remain in the current management until it is effectively replaced,” he stated.
Palma Ramalho added, on the other hand, that “I didn’t want to take the risk of not getting paid.“No orders were given to buy food for homes, nurses and basic services were not paid.”
In the dismissal ceremony, the Government accused Ana Jorge and the board of “seriously negligent actions”, specifically for the lack of a financial restructuring plan, which the minister insists does not exist. Palma Ramalho believes that there will be no judicial process: “This aspect completely transcends me. What worries me is the management of this issue, which is an emergency. I evaluated, we evaluated, for almost a month and we made the decision, others might not have made it. We take it for the good of the Holy House.”
As for the replacement, no names have yet been revealed. “It’s urgent but not rushed.. If it were about political sanitation, maybe there would already be four or five people there. “It is a financial profile,” he assumes, reiterating that “the profile we are looking for is a financial profile.” “There are very good financiers in all parties.” He does not rule out – “nor do I have to rule out” – the possibility that he is linked to the PSD or the CDS, but “that is not the criterion”, in the same way that, he says, “the dismissal of Ana Jorge was not politically sound.” A clear change of course was what caused the dismissal of the supplier and the board.
“We may be facing complete danger here due to SCML’s operation. Is “This danger has intensified over the last year.” declared the minister, stating that Santa Casa only did not suffer losses this year because the State made an extraordinary capital injection of 34 million euros, she said, leaving the doubt as to whether that amount was Social Security debt: “Well, let’s see ”. But she guaranteed that “Social Security has absolutely nothing” indebted her.
The Minister of Labor will be one of the people to be heard in the parliamentary commission that this Wednesday begins to listen to the former Ombudsman of the Holy House, Edmundo Martinho.
Until now there had not been many explanations from the Government about the dismissal and the minister also preferred to save information for when she goes to Parliament. But he told RTP that due to the lack of delivery of the requested documentation, he made the decision not to keep the supplier, after Ana Jorge had even made the position available, and Palma Ramalho found the accusations strange. of rudeness and slanderous dismissal by the provider.
In the first meeting between the two, according to the minister, “the provider, with complete frankness, said ‘My place is available.’ “I said that this is not about this, we need to have elements to make the decision,” added the Minister of Labor, who reiterates that there was a “total lack of response to requests for information,” that a report was made. It was not presented that it had measures or a set of measures that would have been taken but that were “never” specified.
Upon reaching the portfolio, Palma Ramalho found a situation “very difficult” in Santa Casa, the supplier being “called immediately”. The government official says that, in that first meeting, “there was nothing, there was no restructuring plan.” Although he highlights that Ana Jorge inherited a complicated situation, the situation required quick action. But the Government accuses Ana Jorge of “total inaction” and of increasing personnel costs. “She did nothing, it did not even occur to her that she did not have a financial restructuring plan, that she did not have data on the budget execution of the first quarter, that had done nothing and had increased personnel costs,” shoot.
Rosário Palma Ramalho says that the provider eliminated 19 directors and that these people did not leave the institution, but rather were left without the salary supplements corresponding to the position. Palma Ramalho even accuses the board and the supplier of having increased their salaries.
Source: Observadora
