Algarve MP on Galp ‘tickets for favours’ guest list

Paul Rees 05 August 2016

galpLogo A Social Democrat MP, the long-serving Cristóvão Norte, was also on the freebie trip to the Euro2016 Hungary vs Portugal game paid for by Galp.

This is the same Galp that is in partnership with the corrupt Italian state-owned oil company ENI and has a concession to explore and produce oil or gas off the west coast of the region.

As an MP, Norte will be involved in future decision making over the controversial Galp/ENI licensing process and what should be done about oil and gas exploration in the Algarve both on and off-shore.

Any links at all to one of the oil companies is stupidity of a breathtaking proportion and Norte now will have to exempt himself from any future decisions involving Galp, thus emasculating his role as an Algarve MP.

Cristóvão Norte says the invitation to visit Lyon and to watch the match was extended to him by a friend who works for the oil giant.

Norte justifies accepting the invitation because it from a personal friend, "and not institutional in nature," but agrees that Galp paid for the trip.

The MP was treated to tickets for two games, one alongside his wife and one on his own. He was fortunate to watch the semi-final and the final while fudging his parliamentary attendance record.

Those with sense enough to decline Galp’s kind invitation to the football were the Secretary of State for Energy, Jorge Sanches Seguro, who "watched every game in Portugal," Paulo Carmona, the head of the National Body for the Fuel Market (ENMC) and Carlos Almeida, the president of the Energy and Geology Directorate General (DGEG), Carlos Almeida.

The row blew up when it was revealed that three secretaries of state attended Euro2016 as guests of Galp. The names are,

Rocha Andrade, the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs who also attended the Euro2016 final in Paris,
Jorge Costa Oliveira, the Secretary of State for Internationalisation
João Vasconcelos, Secretary of State for Industry

Who will be next to step forward and admit that they were on Galp's guest list?

Comments

+3 #3 Christian 2016-08-06 17:59

And Mrs Asuncao Cristas, leader of CDS-PP, who is crying foul and pressing (rightly, in my view) for the dismissal of the three Secretaries of State, should be asked why she did not find anything strange about their presence at the Portugal-Hungary match in Lyon at the time, because she, too, attended it. Although she did not travel with the GALP gang, she was also failing her duty as an MP by missing the parliamentary session that day. But what really needs to happen now is GALP being made to pay their taxes and drop all plans to drill for oil and gas, in the Algarve or anywhere else.

+9 #2 dw 2016-08-06 11:49

I imagine the PSD is totally embedded in the corrupt corporate gravy train system. They may be happy to throw this man under the wheels only to replace him with another corporate stooge.

+5 #1 Peter Booker 2016-08-06 08:18

Sr Norte has put himself in a position where he is not able effectively to represent his constituents; in other words he cannot do the job he was elected to do, and over a subject which most Algarvians reckon to be important.

Will he willingly step off the gravy train? PSD should help by pushing him off.

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