The bank, wholly owned by the State and undergoing a recapitalization process, recorded in 2019 the biggest loss ever and in 2017 it had ended the year with a hole of 5200 million dollars, essentially due to bad loans.
In a clarification sent to the newsrooms, Ricardo Viegas d'Abreu, who was charged with the purchase of a personal watch worth 550 thousand dollars with the BPC's money, referred that the decision was taken by the Board of Directors and that the expense was relative the purchase and offer of watches for 512 employees.
According to the document, "the purchase of watches marked and personalized with the name of each of the employees, making them unique and non-transferable, with a global value of 550,000 dollars , aimed at honoring, in that year, professionals who completed 10, 15, 20, 25 , 30 and 35 years of service at the institution ".
Ricardo Viegas d'Abreu adds that the offer of watches had already happened in previous years, "having reduced the cost of the watches in more than half, in 2017, as a result of global management measures to reduce expenses, without eliminating the culture of recognition of employee contribution merit ".
The former head of the BPC says that "the body that conveyed the information, in addition to misleading public opinion with a false and slanderous title, did not exercise the adversary", transforming an act "of internal incentive of the BPC into a suspicious operation, based on in unfounded accusation ".
Contacted by Lusa, the official source of BPC said that 2017 was the last year in which "gifts" of this kind were given. "As of 2018, this practice has been discontinued" said the same source.
