The EY audit of the 'dark years' at Caixa Geral de Depósitos, released yesterday, was only a preliminary one, claims the Chairperson of the Budget and Finance Committee, who says the final report will be "manifestly different."
Teresa Leal Coelho’s claim that the final audit report will be different, raises questions as to the Committee’s work and its influence over EY’s independent submission.
Coelho was speaking to the members of the Parliamentary Committee on Budget, Finance and Administrative Modernisation (COFMA), when she revealed that the Caixa Geral de Depósitos audit that had been published in the press, "is preliminary" and that the final report was, "heavily modified."
"It is manifestly different from the report that was released," said the MP, saying she was “very worried" about the situation and how unfortunate it was that the report is now in the public domain.
Teresa Leal Coelho said she spoke with Caixa Geral’s current president, Paulo Macedo and to the governor of the Bank of Portugal, Carlos Costa, who assured her that the document being circulated was not the final report and that, anyway, they had not seen it.
Caixa Geral de Depósitos was urged by the budget and finance committee to hand over the final EY audit report but the bank’s administration refused several times, first claiming ‘banking secrecy’ and then ‘the secrecy of justice,’ after the report had been handed to the public prosecutor’s office.
The president of COFMA also said that, this morning she had spoken to the Attorney General, Lucília Gago, so that the "true" report could be released and delivered to the commission "as quickly as possible."
"Caixa itself did not receive this version," said Teresa Leal Coelho, adding that the report being released dates from December 2017 and the final report is from June 2018. The final report "is different," said the politician, adding that she was unaware of both documents, adding that, "no member of the committee had access to them.”
"We have been systematically been denied the report and now it is disclosed and not in its true version," claimed Coelho.
The EY audit in to Caixa Geral for the period 2000-2015 was revealed on CMTV by Joana Amaral Dias and then reported across national media. (HERE). The press will be interested to compare the original report with the politically modified version, when released.
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