Did Passos Coelho receive €5,000 a month from the company Tecnoforma between 1995 and 1999?
A complaint has been lodged that alleges that the current PM, while deputy party leader and electing not to receive income from other sources to receive an anhanced salary, received a €5,000 per month consultancy fee for advice as to how best to obtain funding to train technicians at municipal airports.
An investigation into Tecnoforma's accounts has started but is hampered by the fact the business has closed down.
Earlier this year the Attorney General, Joana Marques Vidal, received allegations about covert payments from Tecnoforma to Pedro Passos Coelho which, if true, will have amounted to €150,000 paid from a Banco Totta & Açores account, according to the written allegations.
The PM’s tax records show no such income. If the payments are proved to have been made he could be charged not only with illegally receiving payments but also with failure to declare them for income tax purposes.
The case now is being investigated by the Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DCIAP), which recently has demanded that Tecnoforma's administrators hand over its accounts even though the business went bust.
According to legislation that existed at the time, and still is in force, MPs who accept top political jobs, or ‘exclusive functions’ are forbidden to accept other income from the state or from private companies or associations. As compensation they receive an enhanced monthly salary.
Passos Coelho has neither denied not confirmed that he received the money but despite having been asked numerous times he always has responded through his office that he has not been contacted as part of any investigation and that "if this were to happen, naturally he would collaborate."
His assertion that he always has complied with his legal obligations may not be enough to keep him out of court. This is a resigning issue and Coelho would find it impossible to lead the coalition if charges are brought.
In November 2012, in an email response to several questions from Portuguese newspaper ‘Público,’ Passos Coelho left unanswered the specific question as to whether Tecnoforma "ever remunerated" him for services rendered as Chairman of the Conselho de Fundadores do Centro Português para a Cooperação (Board of Founders of the Portuguese Centre for Cooperation (CPPC) - a non-governmental organisation created by Tecnoforma, set up with the aim of obtaining vocational training contracts for the company.
Passos Coelho has never answered this key question, nor has his office on the PM’s behalf.
Público journalists contacted the founder and main shareholder of Tecnoforma, Fernando Madeira, who in 2012 did not want to make a statement about any such payments. He says now, "I am convinced that he received something, but I can not talk about amounts because I can not prove anything.”
The businessman, 70, repeated several times that he is convinced Passos Coelho was getting paid, adding that Passos Coelho was not there “just for his pretty eyes.”
Fernando Madeira said it would be hard to prove anything "because the administrator who ran the financial part was Dr. Manuel Castro who has since died."
Fernando Madeira sold his shares in the company in 2001 but was never paid and had to go to court to get his money, in the meantime the company was declared bankrupt and was wound up. Madeira now just wants “to forget the whole thing”but may yet be called as a witness if the state has enough evidence to prosecute and maybe bring down the Prime Minister in what would be the acid test of the impartiality of justice in Portugal.
