Portugal’s President criticised over
‘insensitive’ gaffe
Updated: 26-Jan-2012
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President of Portugal Cavaco Silva said his pensions “almost certainly would not be enough to cover my expenses”. Photo: THE RESIDENT GROUP
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Portugal’s President Aníbal Cavaco Silva was widely criticised last week after complaining to journalists that his pensions didn’t cover his expenses.
At a time when many ordinary Portuguese are having to make significant financial sacrifices, the normally diplomatic head of state gave the impression he was as hard up as some of the country’s pensioners who are struggling to get by on as little as €300 a month.
On Tuesday, a group of angry protesters gathered outside the president’s official residence in Lisbon during a State visit by the Spanish Prime Minister to throw coins at the building in a protest campaign called ‘Bring a coin for Cavaco’.
Cavaco Silva is reported to get a pension from State-run pension fund Caixa Geral de Aposentações (CGA) of €1,300 per month for 40 years service as a university economics lecturer.
He is also estimated to get a pension of between €4,000 and €6,000 a month because he was on the board of directors at the Bank of Portugal for several years.
And in his tax declaration for December 2010, when he put himself forward for a second term in office, the President put down €283,000 in income for 2009 of which €140,601.81 came from pensions.
In addition to pensions, the head of state receives an annual salary of €142,375, which he is not entitled to take because of the amount of pensions he receives.
Cavaco Silva also declared savings deposits in three banks (BCP, BPI and CGD) totalling €560,000 and other current account deposits in the same three banks and at Montepio which exceeded €56,000.
He also has investment funds and shares in BPI, BCP, Brisa, Comundo S.A. (The World Consortium for Import/Export), EDP, Jerónimo Martins, Portugal Telecom, SAG, Sonaecom and Zon.
Cavaco Silva said he didn’t know exactly how much he was going to receive in terms of Christmas and holiday subsidy payments from his pensions which “almost certainly would not be enough to cover my expenses”.
The President made his insensitive gaffe in Porto on Friday last week when he was opening two new departments, one for medicine and the other for pharmacy, at the Abel Salazar Institute for Biomedical Sciences.
When later asked about his blunder, Cavaco Silva refused to make any comments to the press. However, on Monday, a message was posted on the President of the Republic’s website admitting that he hadn’t been “sufficiently clear as to what he intended to say:”
Instead the President, while insisting he had never intended to play down the sacrifices the Portuguese were making, merely wanted to “illustrate with my own example that I too understand that citizens are going through difficulties as I have stated in various public speeches”.
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