Paulo Campos, the former president of the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM) has given the Judicial Police a computer file containing notes he took of a meeting in 2014 with Paulo Macedo.
The soon-to-be president of Caixa Geral, Macedo, then was the Minister of Health and the notes record him allegedly demanded the elevation of Helena Lalanda e Castro to a more senior position at INEM where she already was a director.
Helena is sister of the then boss of Octapharma, Paulo Lalanda e Castro who now is one of the key defendants in ‘Operation 0 Negative’ looking into the corruption involved in the public tender that gave Octapharma a monopoly in the supply of plasma to the Portuguese health service.
According to the newspaper Expresso, Campos told the police, "I was given (by Paulo Macedo) a period of ten days to do so" and any failure to comply with the minister's demand would have led to disciplinary proceedings against Campos.
Macedo of course has denied this meeting involved any such demand. In a statement to newspaper Correio da Manhã last Thursday, he said he never "exerted any pressure on the former president of INEM or on any other person to benefit Octapharma, the company’s leaders or their relatives."
Apart from the meeting notes there is no other evidence, as yet, to suggest the new president of Caixa Geral is guilty of using his influence to better someone’s career.
At the time of the meeting in May 2014, Helena Lalanda e Castro was prominent in the Regional Health Administration (ARS) of Lisbon, at the time when its president was Luis Cunha Ribeiro, who also has been accused in Operation 0 Negative on suspicion of being corrupted by Paulo Lalanda e Castro and influencing the decision to select Octapharma for the plasma contract.
Lalanda e Castro also is accused in Operation Marquê. The former boss of Octapharma was caught in wiretaps talking to José Sócrates about his sister Helena and her return to head up INEM as a departmental head.
The former prime minister was a consultant to Octapharma at the time, on the not inconsiderable monthly wedge of €12,500.
From October 2014, Helena Lalanda e Castro started to manage the company Dynamicspharma, owned by her brother. Sócrates was hired as a consultant by this company in the spring of 2014 on the same retainer he used to receive from Octapharma.
After being interrogated by the Public Prosecutor's Office and a judge in the Lisbon Court on Wednesday and Thursday last week, Paulo Lalanda e Castro was placed under house arrest and compelled to wear an electronic bracelet, such is the serious nature of the corruption allegations.
The former head of Octapharma, who resigned from his post shortlky before being arrested in Germany in December 2016, is indicted on corruption and money laundering charges.
As for Paulo Macedo, this sort of allegation does his image no good at all but as the undue influence allegation by Paulo Campos is one man’s word against another’s, the likelihood is that Macedo will not be inconvenienced by a court appearance.
