EDP “excessive rents” corruption probe sees new arguido
The number of official suspects now lined up in the convoluted EDP “excessive rents” corruption probe swelled to nine today (Friday), with former director general of energy Miguel Barreto Caldeira Antunes joining other names, including EDP president António Mexia, and former minister for the economy Manuel Pinho (click here).
According to SIC noticias, Barreto (as his name has been shortened) was responsible for authorising EDP’s open-ended licence for its coal-fired power station in Sines – the country’s industrial plant that has become synonymous with environmental pollution purportedly “consistently responsible for more than 10% of the nation’s total of CO2 emissions” (esquerda.net, 2016).
Says Público, specialists have attested to the lack of time limit on the licence being a “legal vaccuum that could have been worth €400 million”.
Público adds that Barreto worked in the past for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) – through which “two other official suspects” (Pedro Rezende, the former EDP director and João Conceição, a one-time aide of Pinho and current director at national power network REN) “had passed”.
A year after authorising EDP’s “form of perpetual licence” in Sines, Barreto “left the service of public administration and created a company, in association with Martifer, which he sold in 2011 to EDP”. Público cites Observador as saying that “this is one of the business deals that is now under scrutiny by the Public Ministry.
“Miguel Barreto will have received €1.4 million from EDP for the sale of a 40% share in the business ‘Home Energy’ which deals in energy certification, while Martifer received around €2 billion for its majority share”, explains the paper.
Suspicions against Barreto involve the alleged crimes “corruption, trafficking of influences and economic participation in business”.
