Accepting free overseas travel from companies facing government policy decisions, or that later were considered for government contracts, has not been confined to the three Secretaries of State who attended Euro-2016 matches in France courtesy of Galp.A survey by the General Inspection of Internal Administration has concluded that between 2012 and 2017, 37 paid-for overseas trips were enjoyed by members of the Public Security Police, the GNR and the National Road Safety Authority.
For the GNR and PSP top brass, 12 and nine trips respectively were paid for by companies such as SIVA, which represents Volkswagen, and Toyota Caetano Portugal, which paid for a one-week beano to Sao Paulo, in Brazil.
Among other destinations have been the USA, Angola, China and several countries in Europe.
Other trips were paid for by technology companies such as Oracle, Huawei, Motorola, HP, Fujitsu and Microsoft.
The inquiry has ended, no charges will be brought but a number of recommendations have been made, such as - when an employee makes a trip paid for by a company he should not participate in any public procurement decisions that involves it.
The Inspectorate found that some employees enjoyed free trips paid for by companies that later were considered in public tenders, such as Oracle.
The embarrassing ‘Galpgate’ scandal hit the headlines in August 2016, when it was revealed that three secretaries of state (Fernando Rocha Andrade, João Vasconcelos and Jorge Oliveira) went to Euro-2016 in France, paid for by Galp. They later resigned.
It also was reported that some policymakers had travelled to Huawei's headquarters in China and several state officials from the Ministry of Health and the Tax Authority, went to China to visit Huawei, paid for by telecoms company, NOS.
The rules covering such boondoggles have been abused. They need to be rigourously applied to rid the public service of the smear that it is there to serve itself, not the public.
