Miranda Sarmento accuses Medina of approving unbudgeted 2.5 billion – Economy

The Minister of Finance accuses the previous Government of having approved unbudgeted expenses totaling 2.5 billion euros.

At a conference organized by the Association of Specialized Credit Institutions, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento described the installments of the sum that results in that value.

“In January there was a surplus – in public accounting – of 1.2 billion euros, and in March a deficit of 300 million”, he stated, adding that “between January and March the debt to suppliers increased by almost 300 million. If these payments had been made, that deficit would have been 600 million euros.

The social democrat who succeeded Fernando Medina accuses the PS Executive of having approved “1,080 million euros of extraordinary expenses that were not in the budget for this year. Of these, 960 million were already after the legislative ones”, he said.

Miranda Sarmento also says that the previous government used, in the first quarter, half of the provisional reserve of around 500 million that “is normally used from the summer onwards”.

And he assures that “after the prime minister’s resignation, the government approved inappropriate expenses of 1.2 billion”.

“If we add these three installments – 1,080 million from extraordinary expenses, 240 million from the provisional reserve and 1,200 million from resolutions from the Council of Ministers, we are talking about 2.5 billion euros”, he concluded, commenting that “the previous Executive did not was neither clear nor transparent regarding the country’s budgetary situation and approved a set of expenditure measures and commitments that were not in the budget and that worsen public accounts, even after the election of the prime minister and even after the elections on March 10th “.

Joaquim Miranda Sarmento refused to provide additional clarification to journalists.

Text updated at 7:00 pm with additional statements.