Former presidents of Nersant, José Eduardo Carvalho and Maria Salomé Rafael, spoke at the last general meeting to give some advice to the current management
José Eduardo Carvalho and Maria Salomé Rafael, former presidents of Nersant, were present at the GA and spoke to lament the radicalism of the current management and give suggestions on what positions to adopt to face the difficulties. Current leaders seemed unreceptive.
José Eduardo Carvalho, former president of Nersant and current president of the Portuguese Industrial Association (AIP), spoke to members at Nersant’s last general meeting asking for more discretion in the way they are dealing with the business association’s serious difficulties. “I haven’t entered this auditorium or a general meeting for 14 years, and I confess that I am worried about the current situation at Nersant. I would like my intervention to put a little ice on all this, based on my experience”, he began by saying. “The pressure on the liquidity and treasury of this association has always existed. This was never a rich association. I would never have called this general meeting. Are there financial difficulties? It seems so; Are the difficulties insurmountable? I don’t think so; Have there ever been difficulties like these in the history of the association? Yes, perhaps worse; Is there more alarmism? It is,” he said.
José Eduardo Carvalho acknowledged that he has a different way of managing than the current president of Nersant, António Pedroso Leal. “Former Prime Minister Cavaco Silva summoned the ministers and told them that they could only talk about the past for six months. From six months onwards, they were prohibited from talking about the past. This applies to all organizations”, he stressed, adding: “when I arrived here I spent six months dealing with spiders and papers. Later, when the association was already at cruising speed, we received the news that the Santarém region was going to be left out of the incentive systems. We had a 50% drop in income and at that time there was no support from the Government. Do we give up? No way; did we convey that there were difficulties? No way, otherwise the banks would be on alert. The situation was managed discreetly. We did not call general assemblies to deal with difficulties as is the case now. We have to be imaginative in finding solutions to problems”, he highlighted.
José Eduardo Carvalho ended his speech by stating that in his time “work teams were more cohesive and we had a team that did not let information pass to the outside. It is impossible for this district and this region to lose the leading role that the association has always had. We cannot continue to fuel wars or divide partners. There is a clear division in the association structure and this is not good for the future of Nersant”, he concluded.
José Eduardo Carvalho’s words seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Domingos Chambel, president of the general assembly, who recently spent three years leading the board of Nersant, was clear: “times change and I do not agree with you that the association is so divided. There are half a dozen people who shouldn’t be here. We know well who tries to divide the association and who tries to make it disappear,” he said. José Eduardo Carvalho, in a statement that was only audible to those close to him, commented: “continue like this, Domingos Chambel, you will go far”.
A general assembly to talk about THE MIRANTE
More than two thirds of the general assembly spent talking about O MIRANTE and the scrutiny that has been carried out on the work of the current management and the previous one, led by Domingos Chambel. “It is not normal for us to be constantly attacked by the newspaper. The attack is permanent, today they call and then send news to the network. There will be an assembly and they will condition it. Do you know what the banks told me when I started negotiating loans and terms? We read the newspapers, you really look really bad.’ Is this a good service provided to citizens? A member who has duties towards an association and who says bad things about it every day has to leave”, stated António Pedroso Leal, president of the association, continuing his intervention in a threatening tone. “I am very committed to sports associations. The persecution of O MIRANTE is such that they have already forced us to file lawsuits against the newspaper. I happen to practice martial arts and I’m not afraid of anyone”, he stressed.
António Pedroso Leal presented a slide with the amounts that Nersant has invested over the last 20 years in advertising in the newspaper. “While this house paid O MIRANTE no one said anything bad about the institution or its leaders. He stopped paying and says bad things every week. Where are the ethics? We don’t need to be criticized every day. Our good name must be protected”, he stated, concluding: “once O MIRANTE awarded me manager of the year and now I am Domingos Chambel’s clown”, stated Pedroso Leal.
Persona non Grata
Domingos Chambel put a proposal to the members’ vote for the general assembly to decide that O MIRANTE and its general director should be considered “Persona non Grata”. An intervention by Maria Salomé Rafael led the leaders to amend their decision and withdraw the proposal.
On the sidelines/opinion
Domingos Chambel’s spiteful
Domingos Chambel served a term as president of the board of Nersant and his biggest job was to wear down the association’s executive director, António Campos, until he resigned with just cause. If the courts work, António Campos could receive compensation of more than 200 thousand euros.
But Domingos Chambel did the trick by losing 20 employees during his tenure: five did not see their contract renewed, one left to retire and 14 went looking for jobs outside Nersant. Only those who don’t know Nersant think that the association can survive with half a dozen leaked cats and without the experience of the staff that Domingos Chambel challenged to look for another direction. Here is the list: Ana Santos, Cátia Monteiro, Isidro Santos, Luís Amado, Sandra Pereira, Tânia Silva, Ana Carina, João Salvador, Lígia Silva, Maria Almeida, Maria João Ricardo, Patrícia Amorim, Paula Valério, Rita Oliveira, Rita Pedro, Sandra Martins, Sara Bugalho Sónia Roque, Teresa Silva and António Campos. The vast majority were people linked to entrepreneurship projects, with many years of experience and relationships with companies, in a job that it would be difficult for anyone to match in a few years.
Domingos Chambel bled Nersant to the bone and even tried to reach all companies, such as Terra Branca, that had partnerships with the association and that gave money to be made in joint initiatives, as has been proven and already written. It is true that Nersant hired other technicians, but they lacked the time and culture to be able to support those on staff and it took them many years to understand the secret of the business.
Domingos Chambel chose Pedroso Leal to take his place, but he remained there to be the one on duty. Pedroso Leal came out worse than ordered; his desire for protagonism and the way that being president of a business association gives him is so important to his work as a professional solicitor that he either lost his mind or was blinded by the power he gained with 80 votes, in an association that will have around three thousand members. Due to the damage he is doing, aggravating the mismanagement and conflicts that Chambel has sown, either the two of them pay half-heartedly for the association’s funeral or take charge of it and hire the region’s Misericórdias to open an extension to a home for the elderly at Nersant’s headquarters. .
Nersant’s extraordinary general meeting to discuss the crisis and the EXCEPTIONAL measures, in bold letters as written in the notice, was after all to wash dirty laundry. For three hours, only the past, internal wars, the relationship with O MIRANTE were discussed and we witnessed an unprecedented way of conducting work. Domingos Chambel seemed like the president of all presidents; He even told an audience of 70 members that journalists could not intervene or vote, when there were no journalists in the room accredited to attend the meeting, but partners or duly identified representatives of associated companies. Domingos Chambel’s spiteful stance towards Nersant’s past was clearly visible during the meeting and can only be read in one way: Nersant under this management will never be the same again. ALREADY.
