In statements to the Lusa agency, the parliamentary leader of the Liberal Initiative (IL), Mariana Leitão, stated that the party decided to move forward with this proposal because it considers that the various hearings that have been held in parliament about the SCML have not "clarified much".

"What we have noticed is that, despite none of the stakeholders and all the people who have attended the various hearings requested so far being able to say that they have no responsibilities, none have assumed responsibility for this process", she stated.

Mariana Leitão considered that, in the SCML, there is a "vicious triangle", composed of "ruinous investments", which have caused "significant losses", a "cost structure completely out of step with what is expected of an institution with efficient management", and the permeability "to political-party interference, namely due to the appointments and the various leaderships that existed".

In this context, the IL decided to present a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the "financial management and political supervision of the SCML", covering a period that begins in 2015, at the end of the executive of then-prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho, and goes up to the current executive, led by Luís Montenegro.

Mariana Leitão explained that the IL opted for this period because it was precisely in 2015 that a policy of "ruinous investments" began, in particular through an investment in horse racing, when Pedro Santana Lopes was the provider of the SCML, which "resulted in losses of several million".

"We want to understand not only this investment, but also the entire internationalisation process, the various investments that were made in health infrastructures", she said, adding that this management of the SCML is "transversal to several governments and is also the responsibility of several providers who have managed the Santa Casa".

The parliamentary leader of the IL considered it imperative to understand what risk assessments were behind these investments, what motivated them and what losses they caused to the SCML, "also in order to understand what needs to be corrected".

"The truth is that, over the years, these decisions have been made, the alarms have been sounding, but there has never been an effective, concrete action, with medium-term, long-term planning, to resolve the financial issues", she stated.

Asked about who the IL admits to calling if the commission of inquiry is approved, Mariana Leitão replied that "the providers responsible for all these investments and the various supervisory ministers" since the 19th Constitutional Government of Passos Coelho should be heard.

"These seem obvious to me. The prime ministers will also depend on the information and the level of detail that can be reached and, if justified, we will obviously make the decision to call them", she said.

Asked about how she expects this proposal to be received by the other parties, Mariana Leitão recalled that the requests for hearings on the SCML were approved with the favourable votes of several parties.

"Therefore, we are confident that, eventually, the other parties will also be available to carry out this scrutiny that is so important", she said, refusing to say in advance whether the IL will try to collect the 46 signatures necessary to impose this parliamentary inquiry.

"We will see what the next steps will be, also according to what the situation of this first discussion and vote will be", she said.

Mariana Leitão defended that this parliamentary inquiry is important from the "point of view of defending taxpayers' money", to understand "the volume of losses" that these investments caused the State, but also because the SCML is "an extremely important institution due to the social role it plays and that needs to be safeguarded".

"And the best way to safeguard the institution is to ensure that we get to the bottom of the truth regarding all these investments that have been made, the losses that they have already caused, so that we can also correct and allow the SCML to have financial health that allows it to prosper", she stated.

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