Investigative team shines further unwelcome light on Portuguese EU presidency spending

RTP television’s Sexta às 9 investigators have shined further unwelcome light on Portuguese government spending over its six months at the forefront of the EU ‘presidency’. The team’s Friday night programme alleged that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which is responsible for running the day-to-day of the presidency) smoothed the way for a €260,000 pay-out to a unlicensed company for work on the controversial press centre. The centre itself has already been dubbed a White Elephant (click here). Now it seems this sizeable chunk of money was spent without any recourse to public tenders and awarded to a contractor who had fairly recently been declared insolvent. The Ministry is now ‘determining responsibilities’, says RTP.