This was in the peak of the economic crisis no shit we didn't have money for them.

So you only confirmed an overextended highway network may become a burden, especially in the times of crisis. Obviously, very high highway density in Portugal didn't help boost its economy in these hard times. I don't see any reason to compete with anyone on the basis of road network size, you can boast that you have a longer network per capita than the UK, Germany or Poland but your economy has been in crisis for like a decade and this overinvestment definitely contributed to it.

And they are run by private companies, run =/ owned

So what does it change? At the end the government or the taxpayers have to pay. Also the deals with private companies are usually made this way that if a company doesn't get enough money from fees paid by the drivers, the government has to compensate them for their maintenance costs.

There are some motorways which are basically useless because not much people pass through them

Exactly, that's something we want to avoid, our highway network was planned and adjusted to our budget. When finished, it will be definitely enough for us, maybe some existing highways will need new lanes but that's all.