Financial Risk:
High
Score:
45/100
Asset Disposals
Q24
33/100
How effective are controls over the disposal of assets, and is information on these disposals, and the proceeds of their sale, transparent?
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Asset disposal is regulated under the law [1, 2], and there is evidence of its observation in practice [3]. The Directorate-General of Defence Resources…
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Planned disposals are not known prior to publication in the Official Gazette [Diário da República], but there is extensive evidence of procedures being made…
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The single transparent source for financial results of disposals is the ongoing Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) audit of the Military Programming Act [1]. The…
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Q25
75/100
Is independent and transparent scrutiny of asset disposals conducted by defence establishments, and are the reports of such scrutiny publicly available?
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The Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) monitors asset disposal through its ongoing audit of the Military Programming Act. The latest available report follows the SAI…
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SAI reports are highly critical [1, 2] and show no evidence of undue influence by the executive or the military.
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SAI reports are made available to the public as soon as they are completed and validated [1, 2]. These reports are released in unredacted…
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Secret Budgets
Q26
0/100
What percentage of defence and security expenditure in the budget year is dedicated to spending on secret items relating to national security and the intelligence services?
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Military intelligence in Portugal centers around the Centro de Informações e Segurança Militares (CISMIL) (Military Information and Security Center), which depends on the Joint…
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Q27
0/100
Is the legislature (or the appropriate legislative committee or members of the legislature) given full information for the budget year on the spending of all secret items relating to national security and military intelligence?
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The Budgetary Framework Law states that budget outlays allocated to secret items are automatically nullified, and all exceptional national security expenditure is to be…
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Q28
0/100
Are audit reports of the annual accounts of the security sector (the military and intelligence services) subject to parliamentary debate?
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There is no evidence of audit reports being subjected to plenary debate. However, there is evidence that the NDC held hearings of the Oversight…
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This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’, given that Parliament has no access to actual audits, as the PRIS Oversight Committee provides limited evidence of…
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Q29
67/100
In law, are off-budget military expenditures permitted, and if so, are they exceptional occurrences that are well-controlled? In practice, are there any off-budget military expenditures? If so, does evidence suggest this involves illicit economic activity?
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The Constitution of the Portuguese Republic specifies a unitary budget structure to impede off-budget or confidential expenditure [1]. The Budget Framework Law provides for…
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Off-budget military expenditure is understood as being a part of “provisional allocations”, which may be used for national security purposes under exceptional conditions and…
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While there is significant evidence of budgetary reallocation by the MoD [1], these procedures are recorded by the DGB and suggest well-controlled operations with…
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Q30
50/100
Are mechanisms for accessing information from the defence sector effective?
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Access to information is regulated by the Access to Information Act [1] which is monitored by the Commission on Access to Administrative Information (CAAI).…
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This indicator is not assigned a score in the GDI. There is a clear regime on the classification of information [1], which is based…
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There is evidence provided by the CAAI in its annual reports [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] that defence-related institutions provide access to information by…
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Q31
50/100
Do national defence and security institutions have beneficial ownership of commercial businesses? If so, how transparent are details of the operations and finances of such businesses?
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Until June 2020, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) held beneficial ownership or shareholding positions through Empordef, a holding company specifically tailored to the defence…
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Defence-related enterprises operate according to the same standards of transparency and governance as any State-owned enterprise [1] and are monitored by the Supreme Audit…
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Military-owned Businesses
Q32
50/100
Are military-owned businesses subject to transparent independent scrutiny at a recognised international standard?
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The Ministry of Defence holds authority over State-owned enterprises, and where applicable, scrutiny is held to the standards specified in Q31. As State-owned enterprises,…
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The most recent audit reports by the Court of Accounts (CA) of a business dates from 2012 [1] and other business ventures show no…
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Illegal Private Enterprise
Q33
88/100
Is there evidence of unauthorised private enterprise by military or other defence ministry employees? If so, what is the government’s reaction to such enterprise?
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Unauthorised private enterprise by the military [1] and civil [2] personnel in the defence sector (Ministry of Defence and the armed forces) is outlawed…
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There is evidence that illegal private ventures occur, albeit non-systematically. A recent trial of Portuguese Air Force officers sentenced for procurement-related corruption involved 68…
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Actual Military Spending
Q77
88/100
Is comprehensive data on actual spending on defence published during the budget year?
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Actual spending is proactively published as the State General Account [1], and it includes the defence sector [2, 3, 4, 5]. Less detailed quarterly…
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The State General Account report alluded to in Q77A is comprehensive, but oversight reports suggest accounting and expenditure tracking errors with regards to the…
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The State General Account report is required by law to be submitted to Parliament and the Tribunal de Contas (CA) within six months [1],…
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The State General Account audit report registers variance between the published defence budget and actual spending [1, 2, 3, 4]. Explanatory notes on the…
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