Former Vice-Governor of, Thiago Pampolha, current counselor of the TCE-RJ (Rio de Janeiro State Court of Auditors), suspended in a monocratic decision a bid of R $ 132 million from the government () that provided for river disasal works. The suspension occurred on Monday (15).
The decision reaches the environment and sustainability portfolio, from which he had been secretary until March last year, when he was dismissed during the height of the crisis with the governor. Under Castro’s disagreement, Pampolha had exchanged the MDB and stood as a postulant to the government in 2026.
In an articulation that lasted months and involved the Alerj (Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro), Pampolha was a counselor of the Court of Auditors in May this year. The sewing involved nominees of pampolha in Cedae (Rio waters and sewage company).
The movement opened spaces for the president of Alerj, (União Brasil), who began to assume as acting governor during the trips of Castro.
While held the position of vice, already cracked with Castro, pampolha complained with people close to the governor that his successor in the environment, Secretary Bernardo Rossi, had paralyzed projects that were his. He also complained that Castro dismissed him.
The suspension of the bidding accepted representation of AEERJ (Association of Engineering Companies of Rio de Janeiro). In the entity’s view, the trading session, which hires services such as maintenance of river drainage and cleaning systems, did not specify which rivers would be included in disasal, nor the neighborhoods.
AEERJ argued that competition was the ideal modality instead of trading session.
In response to the ECA, the state government said that the interpretation is wrong and that the scope of hiring had been well defined, and that it was not possible to accurately identify the rivers that would need intervention due to the “dynamic nature of siltation phenomena.”
In a statement, the Secretariat of Environment said that “it will respond to demonstrations within the established deadline” and is available to the Court for clarification.
Pampolha wrote in the decision that the suspension “will be essential” to avoid the risks of commitments made by the government without “proper conviction” of necessity.
This is the second disagreement between Castro and TCE-RJ government in a little over a month. In August, a governor’s speech against a decision of the Court of Auditors generated a note of repudiation. He had criticized in a public agenda the suspension by the ECA from a bid of R $ 1.7 billion from Cedae to a new Guandu River water treatment system.
“The guy, for politicking, slutting that. The people have to start getting up against these kinds of people.”
“Those who confuse the defense of collective interest with barrier to specific projects reveal, at least, ignorance of the functions of a control body and, at most, disagree with the principles governing the public administration,” the ECA said in a statement.
During Castro management, the TCE-RJ pointed to evidence of irregularities in the case of Payments of CEPERJ (State Center for Statistics, Research and Servant Training), in 2022, and in the state-created income transfer program to low-income families in 2023.
The CEPERJ case must be tried by the (Superior Electoral Court) this semester. In 2024, the TRE-RJ (Regional Electoral Court) of Castro, his then deputy, Thiago Pampolha, and the president of Alerj, Rodrigo Bacellar.
The trial can force new articulations among the postulants to the Laranjeiras Palace in 2026. Mayor Eduardo Paes (PSD), Na, and Bacellar, until then the governor’s favorite, are the most quoted. But the public relationship between Castro and Bacellar has coined since the deputy, without avall, Washington Reis (MDB).
