Former Finance Minister Fernando Medina responded on Thursday to the accusations of the current head of the Finance Ministry, Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, accusing him of "unpreparedness" and assuring that the country "has no budgetary problems". Medina sees two explanations for the government's accusations: either "technical incompetence" or "adopting political falsehoods". 

"I react with deep concern to the statements of the Finance Ministry", said Fernando Medina, in statements to journalists in Parliament, accusing the current government of "unpreparedness". 

The former minister says that Miranda Sarmento uses "falsehood" when "comparing and using data in public accounting to infer that the country has a budgetary problem". 

"And it doesn't. The country has no budgetary problems", guaranteed Fernando Medina, adding that this is a "regrettable moment", which is the result of "technical incompetence" or "adopting political falsehoods". 

The Finance Minister estimated today at around 600 million euros the deficit registered until the end of the first quarter of this year and accused the previous government of having increased spending after the last legislative elections.

"The budgetary situation is much worse than the previous government had announced", declared Joaquim Miranda Sarmento at the end of the Council of Ministers meeting, saying that to the 300 million euros of deficit registered in the last summary of budget execution in March, another 300 million euros must be added as a result of the increase in debts to suppliers.

According to the head of the Finance Ministry, some of the increases in spending were made after the early legislative elections on March 10.

In his initial speech, the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, stated that, in the budgetary plan, the current government had detected "a set of worrying situations, which the duty of transparency requires to be shared with the Portuguese".

The Minister of State and Finance then pointed out that the previous socialist government gave the idea that the public accounts "were quite good, but that is not the reality".

[News updated at 15:31]

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