Government heads cannot seem to help themselves from playing out the TAP negotiations in the public arena despite the final two bidders requiring calm and quiet as they work on their enhanced bids.
The Minister for the Economy, António Pires de Lima, today issued a "friendly warning" to Germán Efromovich and David Neeleman, the two remaining bidders for the state airline, suggesting that they make their "best efforts" to provide "the best offer" by the end of Friday.
"Now that we are approaching the deadline for improved and binding proposals, this is a friendly warning to the two competitors still in this battle," said Pires de Lima in a comment devoid of finesse.
Sérgio Monteiro, the Secretary of State for Transport later said that the Government is confident that improvements in the bids will be made.
Monteiro said that "the expectation is that the proposals will be improved. The dynamics of the negotiations have been positive and there has been openness on the part of the candidates to improve both the technical aspects and even the financial aspects of their bids.”
If the bids are not upped, Sérgio Monteiro said that the Government will make a decision based on the May 15th bid submissions but warned that the proposals, whether old or improved, still can be rejected by the government.
Monteiro then added his usual doomsday threat, "We already know what will happen if the privatisation does not go ahead. There will a profound restructuring with layoffs, route cuts and a TAP left much smaller than it is today."
This is as nonsensical as it ever was as the government now has the benefit of two detailed restructuring plans from the two bidders which it can use to revitalise the business while floating the shares on the Lisbon stock exchange to raise the capital necessary for consolidation and expansion.
