PCP calls TAP privatization an economic crime that will cost dearly

PCP General Secretary Paulo Raimundo on Tuesday defended that TAP should remain in the public sphere and said the move to privatization is an “economic crime” for which the country will pay dearly.

“We believe that a public company, which is TAP today, should have the criteria of public management, and not the criteria of private management, which allowed these frauds, you can’t say another word. And what to go in the direction its privatization is an economic crime that we will pay dearly in the coming years,” he said.

Paulo Raimundo spoke in Minas da Panasqueira, in the municipality of Covilhã, district of Castelo Branco, where on Tuesday he attended the PKP’s national action “More power to the workers” with the miners of Panasqueira.

When asked by journalists about the announced privatization of TAP, Paulo Raimundo said that this would be a mistake.

“This is the wrong decision of the government, this wrong choice for the countryand this is not the right option for our sovereignty and for the Portuguese workers,” he said.

Referring to the fact that the path of privatization has been going on for 20 years, the communist leader also stressed that it was this path that caused the scandals that the country faced in the airline. Compensation to former Secretary of State Alexandra Reis is not at stake for the PKP, he said.

“Look at the deals that have been before that bring us eight, ten, fifteen times the financial damage to our pockets,” he said, stressing that the problems of TAP are not limited to the last two or two and a half years.

In this sense, he insisted that the commission of inquiry of the TAR be extended for the period when Pedro Passos Coelho was prime minister.