Luís Neves Removes the Interior Ministry's Top Civil Servant After a Clash Over Who Supervises the SIRESP Emergency Network
The ministry cites a reorganisation. Ricardo Carrilho had refused to sign off a 26 million euro payment to SIRESP without a written order, and has asked to see the prime minister.
Interior Minister Luís Neves has removed the most senior civil servant in his own ministry, Ricardo Carrilho, after months of conflict over who supervises SIRESP, the state's emergency radio network used by the police, firefighters and the INEM ambulance service.
The Ministério da Administração Interna (MAI, Ministry of Internal Administration) announced on Monday morning that the minister had "determined the cessation of functions" of Ricardo Alberto Gasiba Carrilho as secretary-general of the Secretaria-Geral (General Secretariat) of the ministry, a post he held in a substitute capacity. The statement, sent to newsrooms and quoted by Lusa, DN and Notícias ao Minuto, gives a purely administrative reason: a "reorganisation of the General Secretariat, with the preparation of a new organic structure and of procedures suited to the Ministry's responsibilities, giving a new direction to the management of the service".
A refused 26 million euro payment
The announcement came hours after the weekly Expresso, citing internal documents, described a complete breakdown between the minister and his secretary-general over SIRESP. According to Expresso's account, as reported by Observador and Notícias ao Minuto, Carrilho refused to authorise a transfer of 26 million euros to the state-owned company SIRESP, S.A. The money is a compensatory payment under a contract signed in 2021, which Expresso says has lapsed. Carrilho argued that the company had not given him access to indicators that would let him validate the payment.
The General Secretariat is formally the manager of the contract, but Carrilho maintained that it had no means to supervise the company, which in his view inspects itself, writes its own reports and receives the funding. He asked the minister for a formal written order for the transfer, setting out its "assumptions, grounds, risks and consequences", so that he would not personally answer for it before the Tribunal de Contas (Court of Auditors) or prosecutors.
Expresso also reported that the General Secretariat filed an urgent complaint with the Procuradoria-Geral da República (Attorney General's Office) and the Inspeção-Geral da Administração Interna (IGAI, the ministry's inspectorate) over the execution of a SIRESP voice-recording contract funded by the Recovery and Resilience Plan. According to DN, the complaint puts the loss to the state at more than 62,600 euros.
In August the secretary-general abolished the unit that validated SIRESP's reports and handed that work to a separate critical communications team. SIRESP, S.A. contested the move with legal opinions, and Neves issued an order requiring a similar structure to be restored. The minister's office denied to Expresso that it had left the secretary-general's letters unanswered. According to the same report, Neves sought an internal legal opinion on the payment, says the system is in order, and had earlier ordered an audit of Carrilho by IGAI.
A request to see the prime minister
CNN Portugal reported that Carrilho, who joined the General Secretariat in 2014 and rose to its top post in 2025, has asked for an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Luís Montenegro. The prime minister's office referred questions to Carrilho or to the ministry, and the ministry said no such request had been communicated to it.
Chega leader André Ventura asked Montenegro "how long" he would let the interior minister act "arrogantly", SIC Notícias reported. Ventura already chairs the parliamentary inquiry into Neves's years at the head of the Judicial Police.
SIRESP has been a recurring source of trouble for the ministry. SIRESP, S.A. is chaired by Paulo Viegas Nunes, whose reappointment in May led the deputy secretary-general, António Pombeiro, to resign in protest. Weeks earlier the ministry had set aside about 36 million euros to strengthen the network after failures during the April 2025 blackout and Storm Kristin.
The ministry's statement did not name a successor.
