During the initial round of clarification requests in the debate on the Government’s program at the National Assembly, IL deputy Carlos Guimarães Pinto acknowledged the administration’s focus on state reform but highlighted a “surprisingly absent” area in the Government’s program related to meritocracy in selecting top positions within Public Administration.
“For the State to function well, the main selection criterion must be competence and not party affiliation. Your last Government set a terrible example in this area. In health, for instance, the Government replaced 14 hospital administrations in one year, and nearly half of those ended up led by PSD militants. (…) Sacrificing competence in the name of party loyalty results in waste and poor management in any area of the State,” he stated.
Guimarães Pinto argued that the “State exists to serve the Portuguese people and not the PS or PSD” and criticized former Prime Minister António Costa for what he described as a “shameful attitude of someone who never liked the independence of regulators” by “directly transferring his finance minister to governor of the Bank of Portugal.”
The liberal further challenged Luís Montenegro to “follow the example of several countries” and conduct an “open international competition” to choose the successor to Mário Centeno as head of the Bank of Portugal.
In response, the Prime Minister acknowledged that CReSAP “should be reviewed to function better,” but emphasized that this body was created to “remove the partisan burden” from public office selections and denied any politicization of state positions in the past year.
Luís Montenegro also argued that it’s not possible to advance with a state transformation process “without a minimum of political trust for the implementation of the Government’s guidelines and directions” and ensured a “depoliticized public administration in both directions.”
“I don’t want anyone in public administration because they have a party card from the Government’s political forces, but I also don’t want anyone in public administration to go against those in government,” he elaborated.
The Government leader also assured that state reform would not involve cuts but savings to “free up resources to pay better salaries” and have greater investment capacity in public services.
