Miguel Sousa Tavares expressed on Thursday night during a discussion on CNN Portugal that the privatization of 49.9% of TAP is a positive step, yet he noted that the process has suffered numerous “errors” over the years by the administrations of Pedro Passos Coelho and António Costa.
“To this day, I am still trying to understand why TAP needed 3.2 billion euros from the taxpayers after being renationalized. Did no one consider assessing TAP’s market value? Because the 3.2 billion euros is more than double what TAP is valued at. We injected money to lose. It’s obvious that taxpayers will never be reimbursed,” the commentator stated.
Sousa Tavares noted that despite privatization, “the Portuguese will continue to pay for TAP,” since the State and workers still hold the majority share of the company.
“They say that TAP must have the majority public capital because it’s a strategic company for Portugal […]. Everything that is done can be done by a private company. Where there is a market, there are services, and where there is demand, there is supply. Now, what a private company probably won’t do is sustain political routes, such as those to Guinea-Bissau and São Tomé and Príncipe, where TAP only loses money and is maintained in the name of the CPLP. These are routes that serve these countries, not Portugal,” he remarked.
