“Gold visas and Isabel dos Santos are not exactly the same” – Observer

Mário Centeno admits changes to gold visas, which allow foreigners to buy houses of 500 thousand euros to obtain a residence permit, but he insists on separating the waters between this type of investment and the case of Isabel dos Santos. In response to Congresswoman Mariana Mortágua, who had linked the two issues, the Finance Minister considered “important that the themes are not confused, because the gold and Isabel dos Santos visas are not exactly the same thing“.

The blockade deputy defended that gold visas are “a moral aberration ”, what serves “for money laundering”, and suggested to the Government not to let it slip “a new opportunity ”to end this regime.

Centeno even admits that improvements are sought, because he considers the degree of demand associated with gold visas worrying, but he insisted on removing the Angolan businesswoman from this discussion.

“The Government is not negotiating an extraordinary injection ”in Novo Banco, guaranteed Mário Centeno, who contradicts the news that an additional amount of 1.4 billion euros is at stake.

The Finance Minister, who answered the doubts of the Left Bloc and the PCP, even says that the extraordinary injections are “far from happening“, But it should be noted that,“if and when they exist, they will have to come to the Assembly of the Republic“. This would require an amending budget.

The OE2020 already foresees 600 million euros for the Resolution Fund to inject this year in the bank led by António Ramalho. And before that, 1,941 million euros of the contingent capital mechanism of a total of 3.89 billion were used in the agreement with Lone Star when the bank was sold.

The Minister of Finance also took advantage of the last budget hearing to members of the Government to reveal the final figures for this year’s investment. “This afternoon we will learn that in 2019 public investment increased 20.6% in central administration”, Mário Centeno told the deputies, in anticipation of the December budget execution data, which will be published this afternoon. The data are in public accounting, in a cash logic, in contrast to national accounting – the one that counts for Brussels -, which already takes into account the commitments made.

Values ​​that are expressive, but that do not convince the opposition. Duarte Pacheco, from PSD, accused Centeno of having always left “more than 700 million euros to be executed”Throughout governance. “You know perfectly well that these investment levels only exist on paper, ”Pointed out the Social Democrat deputy, who sees in this budget proposal“a political fraud ”that only the government and the PS satisfy.

Mariana Mortágua, from Bloco de Esquerda, went even further, accusing the Finance Minister of “manipulation of the budget debate ”. “You cannot come here to say that this is a good budget, because increases spending on health, investment or education in X, only to say that spending commitments are not to be fulfilled. Because this X is worthless. Ceased to count. Worthless”, Accused the blockade deputy.

“The truth is this: the Government did not execute 2217 million in expenses”, of which “1257 million are investments”, said Mariana Mortágua. “We cannot believe it when the minister tells us that this is the budget that most increases investment when later in the same speech he tells us that these authorizations are only indicative”, He lamented.

At the PCP, Duarte Alves stated that public investment has been “the variable that allows deficit reduction”. The communist deputy therefore asked the Government to invest more in the railroad and in health.

Mário Centeno replied that in the last three years “The rate of execution has been rising successively” and that in the case of SNS, there will be 17.6% growth in investment in 2019, “the highest value of the last almost ten years, except for 2012 when there was a very high value”.

Taking a positive view of the past 4 years, the minister highlighted the figures for investment, but also for economic growth, which has risen “consecutively for 23 quarters”; the deficit, which recorded “the best results” in almost five decades; and, among others, the net external debt, which falls 15 percentage points. “I repeat, so that in the house of democracy the truth of the data is not lacking again: the external debt has decreased and with it the risks for the future ”, shot Centeno.

In a debate marked by mutual accusations, not even thirty seconds passed from Mário Centeno’s speech to the deputies and the minister was already shooting at the opposition: “Some want more spending, others advertise less taxes, and some still propose both at the same time. Everyone is betting on growth. As if the budget were a bookmaker”, Said the finance minister.

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