Despite everything having gone surprisingly quiet, the Socialist Party is doing its best to turn the thumb-screws on the embarrassing Golden Visa scandal. In parliament yesterday, MP Luís Ameixa tabled questions for the programme’s champion, deputy PM Paulo Portas – clearly designed as provocation.
Ameixa asked Portas whether he was “uncomfortable” with the new inquiry called by the incoming Minister of Internal Administration, Anabela Rodrigues.
He also queried whether Portas was against it, considering Rodrigues was stressing urgency and the need for transparency after so many high-ranking government employees had been rounded up by police corruption squads last month.
Ameixa also wanted to know the “damages” that may have been caused by the unpredictability of the whole Golden Visa system.
As far as he could see, he said in his submission, there exists a “patently different understanding of the gravity” of the Golden Visa scandal and the lessons to be learned therefrom.
While the Minister for Internal Administration “seems to be looking to clean-up the processes” involved, the deputy PM “seems to be against the eventuality of reviewing them” altogether.
Indeed, Portas’ attitude has already been echoed by Finance Minister Maria Luísa Albuquerque who answered queries on the subject in the European Parliament the other day, saying she felt the Golden Visa scheme was still very “useful” for Portugal and she could see no reasons in either the short or medium term to drop it.
Meantime, the lawyer of former notary institute boss António Figueiredo – believed to be one of the principal players in the scandal – has appealed against his client’s continued detention in preventive custody, stressing Figueiredo does not even pose a flight risk.
According to Rui Patrício, there is also a “lack of foundation” in the charges that both his client and numerous others are thought to be facing.
It is an interesting situation, in as much as Patrício’s bid is very possibly using the exact wording to be used by Sócrates lawyer, José Araújo when he eventually tries to spring his famous client from cell number 44 at Évora prison.
