Minister Vinicius de Carvalho said he was not aware of whether the Minister of Social Security, Carlos Lupi, knew the orientation and why the payments were not interrupted
The Minister of the CGU (Comptroller General of the Union), Vinicius de Carvalho, said on Thursday (24.br.2025) that the agency warned the INSS (National Institute of Social Security) in the middle of 2024 over possible irregularities in retirees discounts. The CGU guided by the suspension of all agreements with entities that made this discount, but was not answered.
The PF launched on Wednesday (23.abr) the operation without discount to investigate a scheme of undue discounts on retirement and pensions of the INSS. The operation fulfilled 211 search and seizure court orders and 6 temporary arrest warrants in the Federal District and 13 states.
According to the PF, irregularities related to the discounts of associative tuition applied to social security benefits, especially pensions, granted by the INSS, were identified.
The government reported that by 2023 the CGU (Comptroller General of the Union) began a series of findings on the increase in the number of entities and discounted values of retirees.
From this process, audits were made in 29 entities that had ACTs (technical cooperation agreements) with the INSS. Interviews were also conducted with about 1,300 retirees who had payroll discounts.
Carvalho said he could not say whether the Minister of Social Security, Carlos Lupi, who is responsible for the INSS, knew this guidance to suspend the contracts. According to him, why this recommendation was not followed is one of the targets of the PF investigation.
“We made the recommendation to the INSS. If the minister knew, I have no way to say. The recommendation was made to the INSS”said the CGU.
“Not following CGU’s recommendations is not a crime. But it is an indication that is being taken into account in the individualization of the conduct of the people who are being the subject of the investigation. Both from the people who were removed and in relation to the people of entities who have also suffered searches and apprehensions.”these.
This Thursday (24.abr), the CGU and the INSS reported that they suspended all discounts in this modality. In the payroll of retirement and benefits of May the discount will still be debited, but will be retained, without transfer to the institutions. In June, then, all this feature will be returned to the beneficiaries.
The government also assured that it will return the money that was improperly discounted from retirees, but did not say how this will be done and when it should occur.
It will be necessary to identify how many people were fraudulent and when upstream. Which there is no date to happen.
The report that Carvalho says sent to the INSS in the middle of 2024 a CGU report that pointed out that 97.6% of INSS retirees and pensioners had direct discounts not authorized in their benefits to pay unions and associations.
The agency interviewed 1,273 beneficiaries from April to July 2024 in all states of the country. Of the total, 96% said they did not participate in any association. The report on the audit was prepared in September 2024, but was only released now. Read A (PDF – 4.9 MB) of the document.
According to CGU, the results indicated the “Great probability” of discounts were made improperly and defaulting on the interest of the pensioners.
The minister stated that the main responsibility of the fraud is that the institutions possibly defrauded the system, but certainly there were faults from the government. According to him, if civil servants are identified as involved, they will be punished.
“If there were no evidence of failure, these people would not have been removed. So, obviously, there are clear evidence that there were flaws. At the very least”he said.
The CGU reported that the audit was made after identifying a sudden increase in the amount of discounts for associative tuition performed on the payroll of beneficiaries. According to CGU, in 2022, the value of discounts performed was R $ 706.2 million. In 2024, the amount more than tripled, reaching R $ 2.6 billion.
According to the minister, the values rose from 2023 because there was a discharge of authorized institutions to make such discounts at the end of 2022, with charges starting in 2023.
