Justice Minister Stands By Interior Minister Luís Neves as a Construction-Contracts Inquiry Reaches His Odemira Home
Justice Minister Rita Alarcao Judice has defended Interior Minister Luis Neves, saying he is 'managing the process the best way he knows how,' as a probe into construction firm Construbarcelos — €1.9M in public contracts and works on his Odemira home — draws in the government.
The government closed ranks this week around Luís Neves, the Minister of Internal Administration, as an investigation into a construction firm that both worked for the police and renovated his private home gathered pace. Justice Minister Rita Alarcão Júdice said her colleague was “managing the process the best way he knows how,” and insisted that public confidence in the Polícia Judiciária (PJ — Judicial Police) would not be “tarnished” by the affair.
Neves is an unusually exposed figure for this kind of scrutiny. Before entering government he spent eight years as national director of the PJ — the very force now caught up in the case — which makes any suggestion of favourable treatment doubly awkward for both the minister and the institution he once led.
What the inquiry is about
At the centre is Construbarcelos, a construction company that received roughly €1.9 million in public contracts between 2020 and 2025, including work at PJ facilities, and which also carried out renovation works on Neves's private property in São Teotónio, in the Alentejo municipality of Odemira. The company drew investigators' attention when a trailer linked to the drug-trafficking probe known as “Operação Pacoba” (Operation Pacoba) was found attached to one of its trucks. The PJ opened an inquiry on 17 July, the Ministério Público (Public Prosecutor's Office) has confirmed an active investigation, and Odemira's council is separately checking whether the works at Neves's home were properly licensed.
The political fallout
The case has become a lightning rod at an awkward moment for the Aliança Democrática (AD — Democratic Alliance) government. Rui Rio, the former leader of the Partido Social Democrata (PSD — Social Democratic Party), said the affair “deeply undermines” the credibility of the government and of both establishment parties, and warned that it plays into the hands of Chega, which has surged in recent polling. Chega leader André Ventura had already, on 17 July, urged Neves to “leave on his own two feet” rather than wait to be pushed.
Neves has not resigned and, at least publicly, keeps the confidence of the executive. The Justice Minister's intervention — a cabinet colleague vouching for him by name — signals that the government intends to ride out the controversy rather than sacrifice a minister over an investigation still at an early stage.
Why it matters
A sitting Interior Minister — the person ultimately responsible for policing and internal security — sits under a conflict-of-interest cloud while the force he once commanded investigates a firm that worked on his own house. Coming as poll after poll shows the AD slipping behind Chega, the episode feeds directly into the central Portuguese political question of the summer: whether a minority centre-right government can hold its authority together, or whether each fresh scandal accelerates the drift towards the populist right.
