The Minister of Social Security, Wolney Queiroz (PDT-PE), is expected to meet with the new president of the INSS, Ana Cristina Silveira, this Tuesday. The objective is to discuss the next steps in command of the body and any new replacements should be made in the authority.
The expectation is that there will be changes in the board, in addition to advisors to former president Gilberto Waller, who was fired on Monday.
According to interlocutors, there must be changes in the benefits department, headed by Márcia Eliza de Souza, and in the agency’s attorney’s office, headed by Elvis Gallera Garcia. The two are career civil servants at the Attorney General’s Office (AGU), with experience in social security and were appointed by Gilberto Waller.
The appointment of Ana Cristina to the presidency of the INSS represents greater interference by the minister in the INSS, one year after the launch of Operation Without Discount by the Federal Police, in April 2025, which revealed a fraud scheme against retirees and resulted in the downfall of all the organization’s directors and former minister Carlos Lupi (PDT-RJ).
Waller was President Lula’s technical choice, in an attempt to improve the image of the INSS and find a solution to compensate retirees for undue discounts in favor of associations and unions.
A career Social Security employee, Ana Cristina was appointed to the presidency of the INSS by the minister. Before her appointment, she held the position of deputy executive secretary of the department.
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In an interview with GLOBO, the minister said that Waller was fired because he was unable to reduce the INSS queue, of 2.7 million applications in March. However, the two had been at odds for months.
During the INSS CPI, Waller approached the commission’s leadership, defending the scope of the investigations. The president of the INSS also acted against the appointment of employees linked to the previous board to leadership positions, which increased the tension with the minister. When contacted, Waller did not respond.
Queue challenge
Ana Cristina Silveira takes charge of the INSS with the challenge of reducing the INSS queue, one of the main problems of Social Security, six months before the presidential elections and amid the drop in approval of the Lula government.
In a note, the ministry highlighted the fact that Ana Cristina is a career civil servant, having served as president of the Social Security Appeals Council, a period in which she “doubled her resource analysis capacity”.
However, employees warn that the experience at the Appeals Council, which functions as an administrative court, does not compare to the demands imposed on the presidency of the INSS, considered the largest authority in South America.
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In addition to managing a payroll of over 30 million benefits, analyzing around 750,000 new requests per month, the agency’s responsibility is to manage systems, combat fraud and maintain the functioning of agencies across the country.
Graduated in Law, Ana Cristina began her career in 2003 as a social security analyst. The only higher position was the presidency of the Pension Appeals Council between April 2023 and February this year. In March, he became part of the team of assistants to the Minister of Social Security, Wolney Queiroz, in the executive secretariat.
In a statement, the ministry’s advisor said that Ana Cristina has been a career INSS employee for 20 years, having started in the agency’s agencies in the state of Sergipe and working at the management level for at least the last ten years.
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