Lisbon, Sept. 3, 2024 (Lusa) - The audit by Portugal's Inspectorate-General of Finance (IGF) found service contracts at TAP totalling €11.7 million, in which there are "doubts" as to the actual beneficiary.

"The payments made by TAP, SA and TAP, SGPS, SA, between 2005 and 2022, related to the contracting of consultancy services, totalled €400.6 million", involving "around 1,308 entities, in the areas of information technology, operations, legal support, tax and strategy", reads the document, to which Lusa had access.

"Concerning the contracts analysed, except for the consultancy services provided by the companies Seabury Aviation Consulting, LLC and KPMG, to the value of €11.7 million, where doubts remain as to the actual beneficiary, the remaining consultancy services analysed show that they were provided to the TAP Group," it said.

Among several points highlighted by the IGF, the entity reported that "between June and October 2020, the Portuguese government was authorised to acquire, through the Directorate-General for the Treasury and Finance, for the sum of €55 million, an additional 22.5% of the shareholdings, economic rights and ancillary benefits of TAP, SGPS from the shareholder Atlantic Gateway (in addition to the 16% reacquired in 2017, making a total of 50% that year)", but no "information underlying the calculation of that amount was made available to the IGF".

The government has already sent the report of the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) on TAP to the Public Prosecutor's Office after receiving it last week, the minister of infrastructure and housing, Miguel Pinto Luz, said on Tuesday.

The minister, who was secretary of state for infrastructure, transport, and communications in the government of Pedro Passos Coelho (PSD/CDS-PP) at the time of TAP's privatisation in 2015, said that the process "was one of the most scrutinised in Portuguese democracy."

ALN/ADB // ADB.

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