Not bad, in one afternoon a profit of 5.2 million euros for signing two deeds for the same building. In total, and in just over a year, this company had a net profit of 8.9 million euros.
Between direct contracts without public tender. Ruinous “consulting” contracts, without understanding what they are for, however, we are not talking about cents, but about millions of euros of taxpayers “disappearing”.
It’s not even worth mentioning, because we all already know by heart the pattern of Portuguese “justice”, which is why the administrators accused of harming the CTT company (aka Portuguese taxpayers) to the tune of 13.5 million euros were all acquitted.
The following article is a translation (mostly MT). You can find the link to the original website at the end of it.
CTT case: Five cases of harmful management
The sale of buildings
According to the Public Ministry (MP), Demagre’s favoritism began when the Correios administration refused to update the 2000 valuation which pointed to a sales value between 15.9 and 19.4 million euros. Demagre was CTT’s only interlocutor, as the sale was not publicized, unlike others.
According to the MP, before due authorization from the Board of Directors, “Horta e Costa and Manuel Baptista had already promised to sell the building to Júlio Macedo and Pedro Garcez” (Demagre partners). They would only buy if CTT continued as their tenants, in exchange for an income of 55 thousand euros per month for 20 years.
Now, on the same day that it signed the purchase deed for the building, for 14.8 million euros, Demagre resold it to ESAF (Espírito Santo Activos Financeiros), for 20 million.
CTT’s leasing position, as well as that of Coimbra City Council and others, also passed to ESAF – which still earned Demagre, a year later, a premium of 6.6 million euros.
Thus, in just over a year, Demagre had a net profit of 8.9 million euros.
Postal Bank
Carlos Horta e Costa ordered Gonçalo Rocha in 2003 to negotiate the hiring of consultant Roland Berger. The purpose of the contract was to provide financial services for CTT. The issue is that one year prior, the CTT administration had sold its stake in Banco Postal to Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) with a loss of 2.7 million euros. Additionally, they had taken on the responsibility of paying 3.1 million euros to CGD if they pursued an alternate project. The MP claims that the former president of CTT and their member.
were aware that hiring Roland Berger, in addition to being expensive (he received 3.5 million euros from CTT), could be useless. As it happened:
the shareholder State vetoed the project advised by Roland Berger (which would have BANIF, owned by Horácio Roque, as a partner).
Ruinous contracts
The hiring of the consultancy Heidrick & Struggles, by Nuno Vasconcellos, by direct agreement, is also called into question: according to the MP, CTT should have held a public tender. The consultant sent several proposals to Horta e Costa, who simply presented them to the Board of Directors for approval.
Heidrick received a total of 3.7 million euros from CTT, of which 450 thousand euros relate to additional payments that the MP says were not due to him.
Two more direct adjustments – with Visabeira and Rentilusa (vehicle rental company, part of the BPN group) – damaged CTT by 4.4 million euros.
A country where criminals and the powerful are systematically protected to the detriment of victims and its citizens is the definition of a dictatorship, which is why Portugal should leave the EU.
PORTUGAL ROBBED ME €130.000 EUR AND SIX YEARS OF MY LIFE!
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CTT postal workers keep on making mistakes by asking us to sign for a bigger amount of mail than they deliver to us. We always correct them and never give up to their potential scam, but the CTT keeps on trying again and again to bring less mail and toi haver us sign for more. For example: I was asked to make one digital signature on a CTT phone for 20 pieces of mail, but was presented only 18 pieces. Once I notified the delivery person they quickly discovered the missing mail pieces. Or the CTT would mark my mail as delivered without delivering it to me. When approached they would blame the rainy weather or a mistake made or simply mail left on the shelf fogotten to deliver. Yet they do not forget to mark it as DELIVERED.