Africa-Press – Cape verde. Four soldiers, an officer and three sergeants, are still waiting for the processing of allowances for a mission of about five months in Portugal, carried out in 2019, as part of the frustrated exchange of the Coast Guard Dornier for two CASA planes. The business fell to the ground, however, and these military cadres returned to the country without training and without seeing the money they were owed.
In view of an exchange of the Coast Guard Dornier for the two CASA aircraft, several technicians were sent to Portugal, between April and September 2019, to receive training in the maintenance area of these Portuguese Air Force devices that had already been discontinued.
“This trip to Portugal entailed high costs for the Armed Forces (AF), as an order from the Chief of Staff, of June 27, 2019, granted these soldiers the right to daily subsistence allowances during the stay of more than of four months in Portugal”, explained a source to A NAÇÃO.
The four milliards, three years after the end of the mission ordered by the Ministry of National Defense, continue to claim the payment of more than 300 contos (1,200 contos for the four) that should have been paid at the time. “Until today, the subsistence allowances have not been paid in full”.
In addition, with the denunciation of the business, through the articles that A NAÇÃO dedicated to the case, these technicians returned with “empty hands”, because “there are no planes, no CASA, nor Dornier”. The four, according to our source, are currently quartered in their offices, that is, “a lot of money spent, but no use at all”.
According to one of the recipients, who is still awaiting the remaining 300 contos of allowances related to the mission he carried out from April to September 2019 to Portugal, “they gave us only a part of about 100 thousand escudos, with the promise of completing the all the subsistence allowances that we were entitled to during the period we were training on CASA aircraft”.
Dispatch violated
Our interlocutor also reveals that, upon arriving in Cape Verde, at the end of September 2019, they contacted all the heads and commands in order to solve the problem, but they did not have any response. In fact, the only military entity that gave them an answer was the then commander of the National Guard, Colonel Sá Miranda, who “told us that if we continued to insist on the issue of the payment of subsistence allowances, we would be punished in an exemplary manner”.
It is, however, a clear violation of an order nº 0557/19 of the Chief of Staff of the FA, Major General Anildo Martins, which determines the attribution of subsistence allowances at the rate of 1/3, when traveling to Portugal, from 19 April to 1 September 2019, Lieutenant Emerson dos Santos, Major Sergeant Vicente Dias, Second Sergeant João Baptista Fernandes and Second Sergeant Filomeno Varela, in order to attend a professional internship (on the job training), on the CASA C212-100 aircraft, integrating the technical team and participating in the maintenance and transformation of the aforementioned aircraft.
Contacted by this newspaper to clarify this case, Anildo Morais said in a very laconic way that he no longer remembered the matter. He admitted, however, that “if there is a debt, it will be paid”.
Business fell apart
Shortly after the 2016 legislative elections, the Government assumed the responsibility of providing the Armed Forces (AF) with indispensable means to guarantee the various operations considered important in an archipelagic country.
This plan highlighted the provision of air resources, taking into account one of the Coast Guard’s missions, which is medical evacuation by air and sea. There are minimal resources for the sea route, but the same could not be said for air resources, taking into account the long inoperability situation of the Dornier plane at the time.
The Government even stated that it had found a solution to guarantee the air resources for the Coast Guard, through a deal that consisted of exchanging the only Dornier of that corporation for two CASA aircraft. This after moving forward to hire Sevenair to ensure the evacuation of patients.
However, this deal fell apart when, in June 2019, A NAÇÃO denounced that the exchange of Dornier for two CASA devices was configured as a “high risk” deal, or even a “bad deal”, for the State of Cape Green. The devices, “hangared” since 2011 at the Montijo air base (Portugal), had serious conservation problems and lacked the main navigation equipment. Despite the Government’s initial denial, solemn and wordy, the facts ended up confirming what A NAÇÃO had written on the subject.
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