A basic error by the Secretary of State for Transport has led to the Supreme Administrative Court having to suspend the privatisation of TAP.
The Peço a Palavra movement which included the civic movement Não TAP os Olhos, today announced that the privatisation of TAP officially is suspended as their injunction was upheld by the highest court in the land.
The error was due to a shortcut taken by the government in not opening a public tender for the two ‘independent’ bodies that are evaluating the TAP bids.
The Secretary of State for Transport Sérgio Monteiro said today that the government will counter this decision by claiming that the TAP sale is ‘in the public interest’ and said today that the sale process should continue on schedule.
"The expectation is that at Friday by 17:00 we will have received improved proposals" from the two candidates left in the contest to buy TAP, said Monteiro, deliberately missing the point that is is what is decided after the bids are received that may technically be illegal.
Monteiro had better get the legalities sorted out quickly as the sale will be illegal for as long as the current injunction remains in force.
It borders on the unbelievable that the government with all its resources has made this error and broken its own rules for public tendering in a privatisation that was bound to have serious opposition from vested interests.
Whether the fault is Monteiro’s or that of the Minister for the Economy Pires de Lima may never be known as the cloak of secrecy, no blame and no comment descends.
The communists were not short of a comment in parliament today, stating that "The only way to safeguard the national interest is to cancel the TAP privatisation."
The party’s Bruno Dias labelled the privatisation of TAP as a "crime against the economy and national sovereignty" reacting to the suspension of the TAP sale process on the orders of the Supreme Administrative Court.
