CGD’s chairman must report only to the government

António Domingues, chairman of Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD), will not have to report income to the Inspecção geral de Finanças (IGF) nor to the Prosecutor-General’s Office (PGR). To newspaper Público, the ministry headed by Mário Centeno confirmed the new administration of CGD will have to report income only to the government, remaining unclear whether or not it will have to report to the Constitutional Court.

The government demands public administrators declare income to the Constitutional Court; to declare possible incompatibilities and constraints to the PGR; and to declare shares they might have in any company to the IGF.

As an answer to the accusation the government released CGD’s administration from complying with these demands – entering a system of exception – an official source told Público the bank is being “treated like any other bank”, reason for which it lost its Public Manager Statute. The Finance state the internal policies of CGD are reinforced, adding the “banks’ managers have to report to shareholders and to internal control units”.

Justified by this situation, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) will present a draft law, accessed by Público, in which managers are obliged to reveal “all shares and proprietary and contractual interests held, direct or indirectly, in the company in which he will be in office or any other, including competitors”.

António Domingues held, by june 2016 – when he resigned from his position in Portuguese bank BPI’s board –, 56 thousand shares of the bank. In addition, Domingues received, in 2015, options that will only be exercisable after 10 July 2018 – a time by which, if everything goes according to plan, António Domingues will be fulfilling the mandate as chairman of CGD’s board.