Portugal’s State-owned companies – Treasury has no idea of Directors’ salaries or perks

Half of Portugal’s State-owned companies have failed to report directors’ salaries for 2016, even though this is a requirement.

Many such companies have failed to send in their reports to the Technical Unit for Monitoring and Monitoring the Public Sector Business which works with the Ministry of Finance.

Of a total of 226 public companies, 118 have failed in their obligations, meaning we have no way of knowing the salaries, expenses and other benefits paid to members of the various boards of directors.

This level of detail has been a requirement since 2013 yet many of these taxpayer-owned companies, including Soflusa, Transtejo, Otlis (Transport Operator of the Lisbon Region), AICEP Global Parques and the Air Navigation of Portugal (NAV) have failed to submit their 2016 returns.

The good boys include Infraestruturas de Portugal and Caixa Geral de Depósitos. Caixa’s directors are allowed to earn far more than everyone else after a deal was struck by the finance minister with the bank’s former president, António Domingues, before Domingues left in a huff last December as he did not want to reveal his assets to scrutiny.

Other directors of State-owned companies are limited to being paid around €8,000 per month.

In 2016, these directors ran companies that managed to produce a whopping loss for taxpayers, around €408 million.

The problem companies were in the transport sector which, according to State-owned holding company Parpública, helped the taxpayer funded companies reduced their borrowings by 4% – but still managed to end the year €31.4 billion in debt.

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