MAI justifies resignation of Secretary-General with “break of trust”

O minister of Internal Administration, Luís Neves, today justified the resignation of the Secretary-General of the Ministry (SGMAI) with “break of trust”, resulting from situations, including some “of particular gravity”, that “committed the operation of the services”.

After the former SGMAI, dismissed today by the minister, consider the dismissal “an act of retaliation”, accusing Luís Neves of “illegal pressures” and “an asphyxiating political interference”, the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI) responded today in a statement, listing the situations “that compromised the functioning of the services, institutional articulation and the execution of government public policies”, including some “episodes of particular gravity”.

“In recent months,” he says, the former SGMAI “has taken on a permanent confrontational attitude, seeking by all means to undermine the functioning of SIRESP, the only emergency communications system in the State” and “in full time of fires, the Operations and Management Centre (COG) of SIRESP – the “nevralgical centre” of the emergency communications network – has been extinguished without providing alternative solutions, and the support of GNR and PSP was necessary to ensure the continuity of its operation”.

The Ministry also points out refusal of payment by the General Secretariat of the MAI “of the compensatory compensation to SIRESP, S. A., under a mechanism in force since 2021, contained in the State Budget and approved in a Resolution of the Council of Ministers, now claiming doubts that it never invoked in the past”, which “constituted an act of the greatest seriousness, because it endangered payments to suppliers and the fulfillment of the company’s commitments at the most critical time”.

The statement also imputes to Ricardo Carrilho the “protection of decisions necessary for the implementation of vital measures for the Government, namely the provision of SIRESP generators and radios to the parish councils, which committed urgent projects without submitting any motion for a resolution” and the “lack of communication to the guardianship of an audit report of the Inspector General of Finance that identified expenses with remuneration not foreseen in projects financed by European funds, determining the return of EUR 4.5 million to the European Commission”.

These episodes preceded the decision to resign and “made unsustainable the relationship with the guardianship, with protected entities and other governmental areas”, says the statement signed by the Minister and the Secretaries of State Paulo Simões Ribeiro (Adjunct and Internal Administration), Telmo Correia (Internal Administration) and Rui Rocha (Civil Protection).

Ricardo Carrilho’s removal, in the framework of the organic restructuring of the General Secretariat of the MAI, “was determined by the need to find an adequate profile and committed to the political and strategic objectives of the Ministry” and the statements of the former SGMAI “safely motivated by the exhaustion caused by this legitimate decision, came, moreover, to demonstrate to satiety, that it did not meet the conditions for the challenges presented to this Ministry, which require commitment, trust and loyalty”.

In an article of opinion in the Expresso, Ricardo Carrilho stated that his dismissal “was an act of retaliation, and a warning to all those who contribute daily to the action of the State: in the MAI of Luís Neves, and in the current Government, those who comply with the law and protect public money are punished; those who protect the system, and nourishes inaction, are preserved”.

“ In two decades of first-line public service, I have never been subjected to so many illegitimate pressures and political interference as suffocating as in the period in which I performed the functions of Secretary General under the current tutelage of Luís Neves ", writes.

Contacted by Lusa, Ricardo Carrilho said that he has not yet decided whether to take “some measures” as a result of a process he considers illegal.

The MAI statement states that the work carried out by the General Secretariat and its workers deserves recognition, but that “the results invoked by the previous leader stem from public investments, decisions by successive governments and a collective institutional effort, including the Offices of the Guardian”.

“ As for the other statements by the former Secretary-General, they are sick of an essential contradiction: at the same time, to self-pity invokes ‘impare and without any parallel in the MAI’, corresponding to the current governance, implies a supposed ‘paralysis and strangulation’ in the Ministry, which effectively does not exist’, says the government statement.

“ The exercise of leadership functions requires rigour in management, timely information for protection, capacity for articulation and compliance with assigned responsibilities ", stresses.

For the post of MAI Secretary-General, Luís Neves today appointed GNR Major General Nuno Parreira da Silva.

Ricardo Carrilho's removal takes place about four months after the assistant secretary-general of the MAI, António Pombeiro, resigned from office after the renaming of General Paulo Viegas Nunes to the leadership of the company that manages the SIRESP is known.