Águas do Algarve has summoned its board for an emergency meeting at 9am on Thursday, 5 November, after Albufeira Town Hall, chaired by Chega party mayor Rui Cristina, ordered a partial stop to work on the Algarve’s long-awaited desalination plant. Cristina sits on the Águas do Algarve board overseeing the desalination project, raising concerns over a conflict of interests between the politician’s role as mayor and the seat he occupies on the board.
In a statement, the company described the meeting as ‘extraordinary and urgent’. Its purpose, it said, is to examine the stop-work order and agree a ‘proposed course of action’ to ‘guard against any damage’ that could ‘put at risk the continuation of the Algarve’s water resilience project’.
The order, covering the plant now being built near Rocha Baixinha beach, was announced last Friday, 30 October, by Albufeira mayor Rui Cristina. The Chega mayor said it was justified by a ‘breach of the Municipal Master Plan (PDM)’.
Environment minister Maria da Graça Carvalho, who happened to be in the Algarve that day, hit back. She accused Cristina of ‘petty political games’ and insisted that no part of the construction would cease.
On Wednesday, 4 November, the civic movement Albufeira Sem Medo (Albufeira Without Fear) escalated matters, calling for the mayor to be removed from the board of Águas do Algarve, which is leading the desalination project. The group alleges a conflict of interest, with Cristina ordering the stop-work order as mayor while sitting on the company’s board.
The movement has lodged a formal complaint against Cristina, who has been a non-executive director of Águas do Algarve since 1 October. It says holding both roles ‘raises questions of incompatibility’ and that no impediment or conflict of interest was ever declared.
The complaint points to possible breaches of the Administrative Procedure Code, the Statute of Local Elected Officials, the Public Manager Statute and the ethics rules of the Águas de Portugal Group. It asks for an inquiry into the facts, for Cristina to be removed immediately from all matters concerning the desalination plant, and for his resignation from the board.
‘Nobody can be on both sides of the table,’ the movement said, stressing that its objection has nothing to do with whether the plant should be built. Its concern, it said, is the alleged incompatibility between the mayor’s two roles.
The statement also recalls that prosecutors charged Cristina in August 2026 with discrimination and incitement to hatred, over remarks about the Roma community. He also faces proceedings to strip him of his mandate over the appointment of his sister to a municipal post, the movement adds. It said the facts must be established by the competent authorities, and that Cristina is presumed innocent.
Source: Sul Informação / Jornal do Algarve
Photo credit: Pedro Lemos
