Members of the Committee of Inquiry that has been set up to look into the collapse and rushed sale of the Portuguese bank Banif are to insist that the documents they have requested are delivered before the committee meets on Monday.
Weak excuses for non-delivery of the requested information have been sent in by the Bank of Portugal, auditor Ernst & Young, and Finpro, a company owned by Caixa Geral, Banif and Américo Amorim.
The Bank of Portugal does not want to submit the requested documentation as on the list is a request for an internal report of the bank's performance in monitoring BES, or rather in not monitoring BES, which collapsed in August 2014 and needed rescuing by the taxpayer and the banking Resolution Fund, together shovelling €4.9 billion to set up Novo Banco which now is not worth half this sum.
Finpro, a now bankrupt company, has not provided the requested documents because it snootily considered that the request was for documents that fell outside the scope of the committee's work.
The committee chairman has threatened "legal consequences" and a complaint could be filed at the Attorney General's Office for ‘qualified disobedience.’
The collapse of Banif is of national importance and the committee’s work is serious, so for the committee to be treated with such disrespect raises suspicion that arses are being covered.
The taxpayer bailout of Banif, just before it was sold on to Santander, in what now is viewed in banking circles as 'the sale of the decade', added 1.4% to last year’s deficit which came in at 4.4% of GDP.
What the Bank of Portugal still refers to as the Banif ‘resolution’ cost the Portuguese public €2.4632 billion and the Governor Carlos Costa still has his €15,000 a month job.
These figures have come from the National Statistics Institute and show that if the state had not decided to intervene in Banif, the deficit would have been only 3% of GDP at the end of last year.
Comments
Emphasising Malcolm's comment is the feedback of Portugal's finest on the expats websites and so often here on ADN. Drawn from the relatively small proportion who can both read and write in any language and in English in particular - the comments so often entirely un-comprehend the issue being discussed.
An analogy is to imagine yourself trying to educate Amazonian Indians about jet travel and modern tourism. Point to the jet trails in the sky. Point to your luggage. Urge them to get trained (is training needed?) as baggage handlers. That tourism will follow from having hundreds of baggage handlers standing around waiting for baggage.
As with the Portuguese and delivering Duty of Care today - will these Amazonian Indians make any connection to their everyday lives or even their tomorrows?
Clearly seen in this response, All these other players, from the Banking Regulator the Bank of Portugal itself down - see it as a hilarious joke that a Committee of Inquiry "thinks" it now has the power - as in more developed countries - to prosecute them for non-compliance.
Next we will hear of the classic PPP sidesteps. That vital documents can no longer be found (but here is something from Edgar Alan Poe to read instead). Or that the documents requested are needed in another case. Unlike PPP's though there is no 3rd party like the bank lending the money which has kept its own set of contracts. To safeguard its interests.