"Our colleagues in Angola were not very receptive. Never saying no, never saying they were not available to implement or to give information, but in fact there was always something that prevented the information from arriving," said Paula Gramaça.
The official, who is also part of Novo Banco's compliance department, was heard this Tuesday at the Parliamentary Eventual Commission of Inquiry into the losses recorded by Novo Banco and imputed to the Resolution Fund.
"This ended up being not only in this area of internal control, which is, in essence, how the bank implemented its obligations of knowledge of customers, of analysis of transactions," Paula Gramaça also told deputies.
The former BES official also said that "only later", when Rui Guerra joined BESA's board of directors, "there is an opening".
"Dr. Rui Guerra hired a compliance officer, that is, a person to be in charge of compliance at BESA, who came to Portugal," and there was "an attempt to learn" how the procedures were at the parent company, which should be replicated in Angola.
The first of three hearings scheduled for Tuesday was attended only by questions from deputies Duarte Alves (PCP), Eduardo Barroco de Melo (PS) and Mónica Quintela (PSD).
Asked by the social-democratic deputy about who in Portugal "knew what was going on in Angola", Paula Gramaça said she remembered that, "in terms of the institution", BESA reported to the former president of BES Ricardo Salgado.
"It doesn't mean that it was, during this period always, because there was a time when Dr Morais Pires was in charge of the international area," she said.
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.
BES's exposure to BESA was covered, until shortly after the resolution of BES, by a sovereign guarantee from Angola, signed by the President of the Republic at the time, José Eduardo dos Santos, and whose validity was reiterated by the Finance Minister, Armando Manuel, but was later revoked.
