LISBON: Portugal’s Inspectorate-General of Finances (IGF) has recommended to the Tax Authority (AT) that it start disciplinary proceedings against the senior officials involved in drawing up a ‘VIP list’ of names whose details could only be consulted by staff with express permission.
The acts involved in creating the list, which included Portugal’s president, prime minister, deputy prime minister, and secretary of state for fiscal affairs, Paulo Núncio, may represent “different illicitude, degrees of guilt and of censure”, the IGF said in its report on the affair.Under the system set up at the AT, an alarm would be triggered if a member of staff consulted the details of any of the people on the VIP list.
According to the IGF, the system started operating before an order by the then subdirector-general of that AT authorising it, dated 10 October, and remained in effect for more than 10 days after an order to wound it up from the then director-general, António Brigas Afonso, dated 23 February.
