The destination of R$43 million distributed by through “Pix amendments” to 41 cities in 13 states remains unexplained almost four months after the fine-tooth comb began by the .
In September, the minister of the (Supreme Federal Court) ordered the PF to investigate R$85 million in undetailed transfers by different municipalities in the country — they should have presented a work plan on the use of resources on a federal government website.
After the decision, some of them decided to present, at the last minute, work plans to clarify the use of resources and prevent possible suspicions of misuse of public money.
The Supreme Court facilitated the explanation and exempted the federal government from carrying out a prior analysis of the plans.
In the documents, municipalities should describe the object of the transfer and detail financial execution, supporting documentation and justification for possible extensions and include a statement from the person responsible for execution.
Even so, only R$42 million of the R$85 million under investigation had been explained by Christmas last year.
as to Sheet showed, the amendments investigated were presented by 92 politicians who have or had a mandate in Congress. The PF will decide whether to open investigations to investigate possible crimes, such as corruption and malfeasance.
Dino based his decision on a technical note from the (Federal Audit Court) on individual amendments by deputies and senators to the Budget.
In principle, deputies and senators are not investigated in the processes, but the minister determined that the investigations be under the responsibility of the Supreme Court “given that the facts narrated may be related to parliamentary deliberations, requiring caution to avoid any blemish that violates the prerogatives of the members of the National Congress.”
One of the cities that, until the end of last year, had not presented a work plan was Água Doce do Norte, in Espírito Santo, which has 12 thousand inhabitants.
The use of amendments worth R$2.7 million, received mainly from senator Magno Malta (PL) and former deputy Lauriete, was not explained.
When contacted, the city council did not respond. In a note, Magno Malta said that he allocated an amendment of R$1 million for application in the area of tourism and culture, under the guidance of the federal body.
“The municipality registered the resource and presented the action plan, but the responsible ministry did not approve it. As a result, the amount is blocked, that is, it was not used and remains unchanged until a new plan is presented in accordance with federal rules”, said the parliamentarian.
“If the municipality does not make the adjustments within the prescribed period, the amount must be returned to the Union.”
The report did not locate Lauriete, who allocated R$1.69 million to the city.
Another city that did not present a work plan was Barcelos (AM), which received an amendment of R$2 million from former deputy Marcelo Ramos (former PSD, now affiliated with PT).
According to Ramos, the resource was requested to renovate Piabodromo, the venue for a local party, and “it was actually renovated and expanded”.
Ramos claims he does not know why a work plan was not presented, that the responsibility for this lies with the city hall and that the requirement did not exist at the time he allocated the resources.
“I tried to be absolutely transparent with all the resources I allocated, so much so that I did it for all municipalities, even those with which I had no political relationship”, he says.
Barcelos city hall was contacted, but did not respond.
Maués (AM), with 66 thousand inhabitants, is the municipality that left the most resources unexplained.
R$7.9 million were allocated to investments by Bosco Saraiva, former deputy for Solidariedade and current superintendent of the Manaus Free Trade Zone, and another R$3 million from other parliamentarians. The municipality also did not respond when contacted.
Bosco Saraiva states that he contacted those responsible when he became aware that the accounts were still open.
“I contacted the recipients so that they could take the appropriate measures to resolve the outstanding issues relating to these accounts and received information from these entities that such measures were in progress,” he said.
Among the places that have already presented work plans, there are those that criticized the previous management for the lack of data. This is the case of Beruri, also in Amazonas. The municipality received R$ 1 million from Senator Omar Aziz (PSD) for basic health, but told the federal government that it does not have the prior opinion of the SUS governance bodies.
The justification for the absence of this opinion was: “We do not know how to inform it because it was not addressed by the new management, [e os] data was not reported during the government transition.”
