And what about invoice splitting? That's the calculated practice of breaking down large public payouts into sub-ten-thousand-dollar fragments to bypass oversight and red tape.
Do they use that practice in the Ministry of the Blue economy? Perez says only his CEO would be able to tell us that.
Andre Perez - Minister of the Blue Economy
"Listen, we have—we have a very small ministry and we do not engage in these things. No split payments, we don't make those payments as far as I am concerned. Actually, I want to tell you that I have double-checked with my office, checked with my CEOs and everything, and they said we are fine. And I said thank you very much because I am telling you, I speak for my ministry, we are transparent and we are not engaging in any split payments as such."
Reporter
"This was the first time you were hearing that was possible?"
Andre Perez - Minister of the Blue Economy
"Actually, I have never really gotten into what are the line items and what is the paying through SmartStream. I don't have the details so I don't want to comment on split payments as such, so I have no idea what it is."
Reporter
"You understand the concern from the public though and how bad it looks?"
Andre Perez - Minister of the Blue Economy
"You know, again I go back to these allegations. It is the optic that is looking out there, but I do not know the details of it. So again, the media is out there putting out the optics and it is not looking good, and that is about it. I can't comment beyond that."
