The Ministry of Finance tried to argue today that there was no conflict of interest at all in appointing a former Deputy Secretary of State for Public Administration to investigate the VIP Taxpayers List affair, even though Conceição Baptista was employed by the very ministry under investigation.
The inquiry commissioned by the Tax and Customs Authority into the VIP Taxpayers List was conducted by Baptista who until one year ago was a member of the Ministry of Finance and more worryingly, was a colleague the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, Paulo Nuncio who of course was found to be blameless.
Nuncio always denied that there was a "VIP list" of taxpayers with restricted access and appointed his former colleague to investigate the allegations which turned out to be true.
The resulting report published on May 19, concluded that the "VIP list" ran from September 29, 2014 to May 10, 2015 but that Paul Nuncio did not know of its existence, despite being on the list himself with Cavaco Silva, Passos Coelho and Paulo Portas.
The Ministry of Finance today claimed that there was no conflict of interest.
The Code of Ethics that should be followed by members of the Finance General Inspectorate states that there should be a period of three years after employees leave before they can be considered for projects back at their old place of work.
Conceição Baptista left one year ago and was taken back on to run a highly charged and politically sensitive investigation involving a former colleague.
