When asked in parliament by the chairman of the possible commission of parliamentary inquiry into the losses recorded by Novo Banco and imputed to the Resolution Fund, Fernando Negrão (PSD), if he had seen "the document that embodied the sovereign guarantee" given to BESA, José Honório replied in the affirmative.
Negrão asked if there were any regulations attached, and Honório replied that "the attachment with the credits was not there", and when asked "who was the only person who could interpret the attachment", the former director said that "it was the President of the Republic of Angola", at the time José Eduardo dos Santos.
Earlier in his hearing, in response to PS deputy João Paulo Correia, he recalled that "the capital increase in BESA was about two billion euros", and that the sovereign guarantee was "5700 million dollars, it was more than double".
On August 4, the day of the BES resolution, "the sovereign guarantee disappeared, it was revoked," under the argument that with the capital increase it was "in a position to proceed."
"That's why, when I see all of this, it makes me immensely impressed that there was no political management of this dossier, because of the impact and the dimension that it has," considered the former official.
"Let's not kid ourselves: these three or four billion euros... those who end up being penalized are the Portuguese people, not anyone else. Because the money comes out of somewhere, doesn't it? We're not a rich country to be able to pass a bill like this and not look back," he continued.
José Honório confessed to be even "more surprised when after that there are successive state visits by Angolan representatives to Portugal and the issue is not addressed as well.
"I think that given the personal intervention of the President of the Republic of Angola, who delegated to the Ministry of Finance the granting of that guarantee, and given the amount, and if we look at the trade between Portugal and Angola... if this issue is not of political importance, then what is?", he further questioned.
To PAN deputy André Silva, José Honório had already stated that he was "surprised" by the amount of exposure to BESA.
"We had conversations at the Bank of Portugal in which the Bank of Portugal told us that there was the sovereign guarantee, which was a matter that was being dealt with" between the central banks of Portugal and Angola.
José Honório also shared a conversation he had with his board colleagues Vítor Bento and João Moreira Rato, in which he "found it strange that a sovereign guarantee was not being dealt with on a state-to-state basis.
On Tuesday, the former president of Novo Banco Vítor Bento considered it "obvious" that the "political decision-makers" who gave the guarantee to BES Angola (BESA) have backed away from the "complications" presented at the time of the resolution of BES in 2014.
The former head of Novo Banco was referring to the guarantee provided by Angola, supported by a resolution of the then Angolan President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos Santos, on BESA's debt, which was later revoked.
BES's exposure to BESA between 2008 and 2014 rose from 1700 to 3300 million euros, corresponding to 47 percent of BES's own funds at the time of the resolution.
On March 10, the Portuguese PSD party had already announced a petition requesting a "copy of the sovereign guarantee provided by the Republic of Angola in favor of Banco Espírito Santo and all the annexes that make it up."
The PSD parliamentary group also requested that these documents be requested from BES in liquidation, Novo Banco and the Bank of Portugal.
