"Do you know the sovereign guarantee provided by the Government of Angola to BESA? Do you know the annexes? Have you ever seen the full annexes? Do you know who had the power to interpret the guarantee? Do you know whose jurisdiction was to resolve conflicts?", are some of the questions in a PSD petition known Wednesday and to which Lusa had access.
On the guarantee, the PSD asks Sikander Sattar "how he classifies the decision of the Bank of Portugal to disregard, for prudential purposes, the sovereign guarantee provided to BESA," and whether KPMG "ever asked the National Bank of Angola for permission to provide information protected by Angolan banking secrecy to the Bank of Portugal," and if not, "why".
In a March 24 hearing, former BES and Novo Banco director José Honório said that the former President of the Republic of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, was the only one who could interpret the annexes to the guarantee given to BES Angola.
BES's exposure to BESA between 2008 and 2014 rose from 1.7 billion to 3.3 billion euros, corresponding to 47 percent of BES's own funds at the time of the resolution.
Still on the subject of BES Angola, the PSD questions "how is it that the external auditor endorses the annual accounts of an institution for years, without apparently having access to the complete dossiers of various loans granted," in the case of BESA.
"Why was this only reported in 2013, after there had been a change of management, which was faced with a complete disorganization and non-existence of documents supporting the transactions, namely the granting of credit?", the Social Democrats ask Sikander Sattar, also questioning whether "the files existed and then suddenly disappeared."
The PSD also questions "how it is possible" to know "that credits had been granted, it doesn't matter to whom, and that they had never been subject to any regular, partial or total repayment", without having to set up provisions or impairments.
Following the BES case, KPMG was the target of several fines proceedings, for example, from the Bank of Portugal (BdP), from which it was acquitted, and from the Securities Market Commission (CMVM), currently under appeal.
In other matters, the PSD questions the chairman of KPMG if he "agrees with the statement that auditors only see what they are shown", if he felt that at any time the "relevant and requested information was not provided to him by any GES company".
As for the BES capital increase, the social democrats question whether "it is true that KPMG recommended to BES, on February 7, 2014, the creation of a provision of 700 million euros," and whether the consultancy sent the CMVM or the government information about the capital increase or the situation at BES.
