Audit on CGD shows “ruinous operations” between 2005 and 2008

An audit carried out on Portugal’s state-owned bank Caixa Geral de Depósitos between 2005 and 2008 has revealed “various ruinous operations”.

The document which reveals these audits have yet to be made public and are in the hands of the Public Ministry but their existence was made clear by lawyer and former PSD party leader Marques Mendes.

The audit, which was undertaken by Ernst & Young refers to management acts practised between 2000 and 2015, was ordered in 2016 and completed in 2017.

In June 2018 the audit was passed to the Public Ministry by the bank.

Mendes reveals that the audit concluded that: “operations that were most ruinous” were registered in the period between 2005 and 2008. At that time the Chairman of the bank was Carlos Santos Ferreira. Today the bank is led by Paulo Macedo.

Marques Mendes goes on to say that the audit was requested to be sent to the Public Ministry by that same ministry which can mean that: “sooner or later there could be accusations of mismanagement regarding this period.”

But it is not only the Public Ministry which has a copy of the document. Marques Mendes revealed that it had also been sent to the European Central Bank (ECB) and concluded that in future “some people working at the Portuguese bank in high positions requiring the seal of approval from the ECB may not get it.”