MAI had “only commendable words about the work I have done”

O former Secretary-General of the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI), Ricardo Carrilho, expressed surprisethe communiqué issued this monday by the tutelage, in which the Minister of Internal Administration, Luís Neves, justified the exoneration of the former responsible with “a number of situations that compromised the functioning of the services, institutional articulation and the execution of government public policies”, some “of particular gravity”.

“I would like to express my total surprise at this statement, which will have been issued by the MAI. This surprise is linked to the fact that, in the statements you made at the meeting with me, have had only words of praise for the work i have done as secretary-general and the results that have been achieved in the last year”, said Ricardo Carrilho, in statements to CNN Portugal.

The former Secretary-General asserted that it was “absolutely false that there was any kind of manoeuvre on the part of the Secretary-General to make dilatory arrangements for payments to SIRESP SA”, just as “it is absolutely false that there has been any effort to change the operation and management centre of SIRESP this summer – it is a lie”.

“ The operation and management center has been in SIRESP SA since 2022. Therefore, it is at least curious that the minister now comes to claim this when, in practice, the elements of GNR and PSP, which are part of this center of operations, were, are and will continue, as far as is known, to perform functions depending on SIRESP SA. And finally, it is false that there is a return prospect here to the European Commission of EUR 4.5 million, it is entirely false”, he shot.

Ricardo Carrilho indicated that there is “in fact a report from the Inspectorate-General of Finance that determines, as audit authority, that the amount in question, which has been invoked in terms of requests for payment by GNR, is considered as a non-legitimate expenditure and, when integrated, will again be allocated to the security forces tender”.

It should be noted that former Secretary-General considered that his dismissal was “an act of retaliation”, accusing Luís Neves of “illegal pressures” and “suffocating political interference”, in an opinion article published in the Express. The MAI, in turn, listed situations “that compromised the functioning of the services, institutional articulation and the implementation of government public policies”, including some “episodes of particular gravity”.

“ The removal of that leader, in the framework of the organic restructuring of the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Administration, was determined by the need to find an adequate profile and committed to the political and strategic objectives of the Ministry of Internal Administration, framed in the Government program. A vast set of episodes, which preceded the decision now taken, made the relationship with the guardianship unsustainable, with protected entities and other governmental areas ", reads in the statement issued by the guardianship.

The body also considered that Ricardo Carrilho’s statements “inferred from an essential contradiction: at the same time that, in order to self-pity invokes ‘impare and without any parallel in the MAI’, corresponding to current governance, implies a supposed ‘paralysis and strangulation’ in the Ministry, which effectively does not exist”.

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.