MPs across the board are accusing the Bank of Portugal of violating the law.
This is the latest chapter in the Herculean struggle to get information on which national banks issued ‘catastrophic loans’ to ‘VIP clients’ which were later bailed out with taxpayers’ money.
Yesterday (Monday), the Bank of Portugal ‘revealed’ the list of ‘large debtors’ that parliamentarians have been trying to get hold of for months.
Only the list was incomplete, and showed none of the ‘relevant details’.
Names of debtors, the amounts of their loans, these were all glossed over in the interests of banking secrecy (click here).
But MPs are taking none of it. Later tonight they will be meeting in a new bid to get the ‘dirty’ (warts and all) – and in the meantime, leader of the house Ferro Rodrigues has ‘informed’ Carlos Costa, governor of the Bank of Portugal, that all parties believe his institution is falling short of the law.
Said centre-right PSD spokesperson Duarte Pacheco, the central bank hasn’t even complied with ‘minimum services’.
Thus tonight, COFMA – the parliamentary commission in possession of the report – will be meeting to “decide how they can get access to the document with all the individualised details of non-compliant large debtors”.
It won’t be easy. COFMA has already been warned that if certain information in its possession is leaked, the very stability of the nation’s banking system could come under threat and undermine the economy.
This warning came from Carlos Costa – the governor under whose watch bank recapitalisations have cost the country over 23 billion euros, of which 80% is still ‘unrecovered’.
