Manuel Pinho has been made a defendant in the EDP 'excessive profits' case but there seems to be little useable evidence against him, so far.
The lawyer acting for Pinho, the Minister of the Economy in the José Sócrates administration, requested the ‘arguido’ status be lifted as his client had turned up at the police station on Monday to be interviewed but claims not to have been asked any questions.
The Public Prosecutor is hot on the trail of economic crimes in the EDP energy business and already has had success in having the heads of EDP and REN made arguidos even though they too have not formally been questioned by the police or the public prosecutors.
The criminal investigation judge, Ivo Rosa, did not see that Manuel Pino had much evidence stacked up against him but made him a defendant, none-the-less while refusing to authorise a search warrant covering Pinho's home, on the grounds that there it was not relevant to the investigation.
In addition, Ivo Rosa declared that the use of Pinho's emails as evidence is invalid. This is due to investigators hacking into the email account of the former minister and other defendants in the case, without authorisation.
As an ‘arguido-lite’, Pinho has to stay available and let the police know his whereabouts.
Despite this slow start to the case which involves electricity consumers paying over-the-odds to EDP over many years, trapped by a complex Contractual Equilibrium Maintenance Cost (CMEC) agreement, it is likely that Pinho will be a key witness as he was Minister of the Economy in 2007 when the compensation agreements were drafted and signed.
EDP later funded a course, at a cost of several millions of dollars, at Columbia University where Pinho went on to lecture, although this may not form a central part of the investigation which is focusing on the way EDP’s profits were atifically boosted with customers’ money before the energy giant was privatised.
The deal please both China and Lisbon. The China Three Gorges company now owns 21.35% of EDP's shares and expect the flow of excess profits, funded by the Portuguese electricty consumer, to continue as planned.
