The Portuguese minister in charge of transport resigned on Wednesday night, a new victim of the controversy surrounding the compensation received by the Secretary of State for Finance when he left the management of the state airline TAP, and herself forced the day before he leaves the government.
“Taking political responsibility given the public perception of this case,” said Minister of Infrastructure Pedro Nuno Santos in a press release. He added that his foreign minister, Hugo Santos Mendes, is also handing in his resignation.
The resignation of the minister, who held government responsibilities for seven years, was immediately accepted by the Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa.
The “TAPgate” controversy, as the newspaper Diario de Noticias calls it, grew further following revelations about the size of the severance payment Alexandra Reis received from TAP Air Portugal after she left the board in February.
A few months later, she was appointed head of NAV, a public company responsible for air traffic control, before joining government in early December as Secretary of State at the Treasury.
“The recruitment of the manager who received half a million TAPs at NAV without bothering about the terms of her departure is more than negligent,” Publico daily newspaper’s editorial said on Thursday.
Opposition parties have already called for a parliamentary hearing with TAP and government officials to clarify the terms of Ms Reis’ departure as the airline undergoes a restructuring that has resulted in cuts in job cuts and wage cuts for many employees.
“We have to learn from this in the future. Everyone who enters public office is subjected to a thorough examination of their past, which has become more demanding, underlined Head of State Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
Alexandra Reis and TAP rejected any illegality.
The Portuguese airline group, whose difficulties have increased with the Covid-19 pandemic, underwent an urgent full renationalization in 2020 in exchange for the application of a 3.2 billion euro ($4.6 billion) restructuring plan imposed by Brussels ).