The Left Bloc wants to look at the contract between Sérgio Monteiro (pictured) and the Resolution Fund, questioning why details of his €30,000 a month deal have not been published online.
MP Mariana Mortágua has filed a Left Bloc application at the Bank of Portugal demanding access to the formal contract that pays the former Secretary of State around €30,000 a month for a year to find a buyer for Novo Banco.
In late October 2015, the Bank of Portugal announced that Monteiro would work on behalf of the Resolution Fund to lead the sale of Novo Banco.
The left Bloc says that transparency is not evident and it wants to look over the public contract and that there is no good reason why it has not been published.
Mariana Mortágua has asked several tricky questions, one of which involves the contract details and says that the Bank of Portugal and the Resolution Fund should make absolutely clear the reason for the lack of information on the matter and why the contract does not appear on the government website that lists public procurement contracts.
Mortágua also warns of "potential incompatibilities resulting from the functions performed by the consultant."
"Sérgio Monteiro, as a former CaixaBI director, has a clear interest in the sale of Novo Banco as Caixa is a creditor of the Resolution Fund so he should clarify whether his job represents a potential conflict of interest," said Mortágua.
The Left Bloc does not much like the salary either, which at €30,000 a month, "has been the subject of controversy, as is publicly known."
The Bank of Portugal justified the decision to hire Monteiro as "the complexity and the challenges associated with the sale of Novo Banco" led to the need “for someone of recognised merit and extensive experience in such transactions who would ensure the coordination and management of the entire operation, including monitoring of the transformation programme to be implemented by Novo Banco, which is an essential condition of its sale."
Before joining Pedro Passos Coelho’s PSD/CDS-PP government as a Secretary of State, Sérgio Monteiro worked at Caixa - Banco de Investimento which belongs to the Caixa Geral de Depósitos group.
Monteiro has been responsible for various privatisations in the last government, including airports operator ANA, CP Carga and TAP which may yet be unravelled.
The last time the loss making Novo Banco was for sale, the Bank of Portugal had to pull the process as the final bidders offered what they viewed as the market price based on assets and the bank's 'unquantifiable liabilities.'
The price offered for Novo Banco was around a third of the sum needed for Bank of Portugal's governor Carlos Costa to dig himself out the hole he had created when creating Novo Banco from the wreckage of BES after it went spectacularly bust under the management of disgraced banker Ricardo Salgado who now faces a slew of criminal charges.
