Minister Augusto Nardes, of the Federal Audit Court (TCU), wants explanations from the federal government about the payments made to students under the Pé-de-Meia program, after illegalities came to light. Nardes proposed hearings with the Ministries of Education and Finance, and Caixa Econômica Federal (CEF), responsible for transferring the benefit.
The federal government has already disbursed around R$3 billion this year alone to high school students against school dropouts. UOL reports highlighted the lack of transparency in payments, in addition to the lack of authorization from the National Congress, which goes against fiscal rules.
“Considering the seriousness of the matter, if the evidence is confirmed, in view of the potential non-compliance with public finance standards”, says Nardes in an order signed this Wednesday (6).
In the order, published by UOL, Nardes also informs that, with the clarifications in hand, he will decide whether to temporarily suspend the Pé-de-Meia payments, as requested by the deputy attorney at the Public Ministry at TCU Lucas Rocha Furtado. The decision complies with the TCU’s investigation into alleged “fiscal pedaling” by the Lula government.
The MEC has not yet revealed the list of benefited students and statistics with values. After the irregularities were disclosed, Caixa also took the program’s expenses offline.
According to the MEC, Congress approved, in the 2023 budget, the transfer of R$6.1 billion to the private fund, where the money from Nestlé is invested.
Program committee has not yet started work
Recently, the People’s Gazette showed that not even the Nest Egg Committee began its work to propose additional criteria for student eligibility; prioritize the granting of financial-educational incentives; operationalize the withdrawal and use of these values.
The information TCU wants to know includes the following:
- the criteria for choosing beneficiary students;
- the list of students benefiting and payment orders for each of them, with dates and amounts;
- where the list is disclosed (the list is not disclosed and UOL insists on the request to the MEC through the Access to Information Law);
- value of the budget allocation to implement the Nest Egg this year;
- detailed flow of the program’s decision-making and operation chain — from student selection, through “deposits” and “withdrawals” at Fipem to payment into the students’ bank account;
- all documents and communications, such as emails and letters exchanged between the Ministry of Education, Caixa and Fipem to operate the program;
- opinion from the Federal Budget Secretariat on how to account for Nest Egg expenses in the budget;
- rules and legislation for the injection of money from the Union budget into Fipem;
- opinions from the Treasury for Provisional Measure that, initially, was used to try to create the Nest Egg. Afterwards, the program was created by law;
- Treasury opinions on the vetoes of the law that created the Nest Egg.
To the portal UOLthe MEC countered the program’s lack of transparency and said that it complies with the General Data Protection Law (LGPD). However, the law that created Pé-de-Meia requires the publication of data, as is the case with the Bolsa Família program.
