PS requests urgent hearing of Miranda Sarmento to explain statements about budget execution

The PS will request an urgent parliamentary hearing of the Minister of Finance, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, to explain the statements he has made about budget execution, considering the socialists have called the country’s external credibility into question.

An official source from the PS parliamentary group told the Lusa agency that this hearing in the Budget, Finance and Public Administration committee will be requested as a matter of urgency.

The socialists’ objective, according to the same source, is for Miranda Sarmento to “once and for all explain the statements he is making about budget execution”.

“These statements are calling into question the external credibility of the country that took so long to recover and this is unacceptable”, states the same official source.

Joaquim Miranda Sarmento estimated the total expenditure carried out by the previous government at the start of the year at 2.5 billion euros, which was not included in the State Budget for 2024 (OE2024).

In an intervention at the annual conference of Specialized Credit Associations (ASFAC), Joaquim Miranda Sarmento criticized the previous executive (PS) for expenses approved at the beginning of the year, some of which were already after the legislative elections on March 10, which dictated the victory of AD coalition (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM).

“We are talking about 2.5 billion euros that were not in the document that the Assembly of the Republic approved in the State Budget,” he said.

The official stated that the previous government approved extraordinary expenses worth 1,080 million euros, 960 million euros of which after the legislative elections on March 10.

Miranda Sarmento once again defended that the budget situation that the current executive found is “different from that which had been announced”.