PS will request an urgent hearing for Miranda Sarmento in Parliament | public finances

The Minister of Finance once again criticized the previous Government for expenses incurred after the legislative elections on March 10. Joaquim Miranda Sarmento stated that the expenditure made by the socialist Government, at the beginning of this year, was not included in the State Budget for 2024 , reaches 2.5 billion euros. The socialists want to hear the minister in Parliament and will ask for his hearing as a matter of urgency.

“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”, criticized the minister, this Tuesday, in a speech at the Specialized Credit Associations annual conference.

The budgetary situation had already led to an exchange of accusations between Joaquim Miranda Sarmento and the previous Minister of Finance, Fernando Medina, after the social democrat stated that the executive headed by António Costa approved, in the first quarter, extraordinary measures worth 1080 million euros, of which 950 million were spent “after March 10th”. Fernando Medina guaranteed that “the country does not have any budgetary problems”. During this Tuesday afternoon, Miranda Sarmento once again highlighted that the country’s financial situation is “different from what had been announced”.

Miranda Sarmento reinforced that the socialist executive approved 116 resolutions from the Council of Ministers, 42 of which had no budget. “We are talking about measures that as a whole cost 1,200 million euros. That is, measures that were not foreseen and that will have to be paid for through the budget reserve.” In this sense, the minister reaffirmed that the measures had “an impact, above all, at the level of the provisional reserve”, which is normally used in the second half of the year, to cover extraordinary expenses. “It turns out that, in just three months, almost half of the reserve that existed for the whole year has already been used”, he stressed.

The Minister of Finance insisted that it will take “greater effort, rigor and budget control”, but the Government wants to fulfill the promises it made and maintains the “ambition of ending the year with a positive budget balance”. “Contrary to what some have said, I am not saying this to exempt the Government from fulfilling its commitments. That is not the issue. This data must be known because it is factual”, argued Miranda Sarmento.

After these statements by the Minister of Finance, which “are putting into question the external credibility of the country that took so much to recover and this is unacceptable”, an official source from the PS parliamentary group told the Lusa agency that theSocialists want to hear Joaquim Miranda Sarmento at the Budget, Finance and Public Administration Committee, in Parliament, so that the minister, “once and for all, explains the statements he is making about budget execution”.

The same source said that the parliamentary hearing will be requested as a matter of urgency.

“Right to know the truth”

Also this Tuesday, Luís Montenegro, at the end of the meeting of the Permanent Commission for Social Coordination, spoke about the country’s budgetary situation, stating that the “Portuguese have the right to know the truth” and criticizing the previous Government for having left “a financial situation that is not exactly what was advertised”.

The Prime Minister stressed that the “deficit of more than 200 million” left by the socialists “is objective, not subject to doubt”. “Regarding the financial situation, I have already had the opportunity to say and I can reiterate – what happens is the following: at the end of the first quarter of the year we have a deficit in public accounts. And I have already had the opportunity to mention that our objective is to reach the end of the year and have positive public accounts”, he assured.

Luís Montenegro also guaranteed that the financial situation will not reverse the political objectives or harm the Democratic Alliance’s electoral commitments and confirmed that, “at this moment”, he will not make any changes to the Stability Program.