The Minister of Culture, Graça Fonseca, owns part of a company that had direct contracts with public entities for a total of €988,000.
One of these contracts was with Lisbon Council, where Graça Fonseca was a Councilor.
The company is called Joule, where Graça Fonseca currently has a shareholding.
The Minister of Culture became Joule's manager between 2007 and 2009. Graça Fonseca resigned in September 2009, but remains linked to the company, according to a statement sent to the Constitutional Court, without this being a violation.
The company signed two direct contracts with the Lisbon City Council in June 2018, for a total of €22,790. Graça Fonseca was a council member in the municipality between 2009 and 2015.
Between 2010 and 2013, Joule signed contracts, also by direct agreement, with another public entity, Parque Escolar, with a total value of €613,000. At that time, Graca Fonseca was a mayor.
There are also direct contracts with the Câmara de Oeiras (€39,000), Frente Tejo (€200,000), Misericórdia de Lisboa (€102,200) and Metro Lisboa (€7,000).
The Ministry of Culture's office maintains that in Joule's 30 years of existence, the company "carried out more than a thousand electro-technical engineering projects, of which only 2% were directly contracted by public entities."
"The contracts signed with Parque Escolar for projects in schools in Lisbon were all prior to the commencement of her exercise of council duties" and the contract with the Frente Tejo "dates from February 2009," before she became a Councillor.
Whatever the technical rights and wrongs, the perception is that the Minister of Culture has shares in a company that benefited from public contracts.
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