With the devastation in public administration determined by acting governor Ricardo Couto, the State Comptroller General (CGE) should receive in the next two weeks a mountain of documents to analyze in just 45 days. Technicians will have to look into 6,758 active contracts with values above R$1 million and 13,615 procedures carried out without bidding in the last 12 months. A fine-tooth comb is taking place in all departments, local authorities and public companies, so that any irregularities in the contracts signed during the previous administration can be checked. The audit will also focus on personnel: in the last five years, the number of commissioners — employees appointed by politicians — in the government increased by 47%.
The president of the Court of Justice took over the government of Rio de Janeiro on the night of March 23 after the resignation of Cláudio Castro (PL). As The Globe showed yesterday, the judge waited a few days before determining changes in the public machine. The first decisions were dismissals of politicians linked to Castro. The day before yesterday the magistrate published a decree ordering an audit of contracts and also imposed a brake on new tenders, citing the expected hole in this year’s accounts.
In DER, more emergencies
Before the publication of the decree, but already during the judge’s temporary tenure, the new government team verified a wave of new bidding notices. The Department of Roads and Highways (DER) alone published nine contracts in the Official Gazette at an estimated cost of R$418.5 million. Six of them were not scheduled for bidding because they were considered emergencies by the agency: three interventions on slopes of state roads and three packages of paving works in the Metropolitan Region and in the interior.
The emergency paving package was hurriedly implemented by DER: the electronic processes began to be moved the day after Castro’s departure, when there was already a sign behind the scenes that Couto wanted to reduce expenses. Among the cities benefiting from the works are municipalities important to the electoral base of Castro’s party, such as Itaboraí — owned by mayor Marcelo Delaroli (PL), brother of the interim president of the Rio Legislative Assembly (Alerj), Guilherme Delaroli — and São Gonçalo — city of deputy Douglas Ruas, pre-candidate for the Rio government and son of mayor Captain Nelson.
These works were divided into three lots, which together cost more than R$188 million. In all of them, there are opinions from the agency’s internal control warning that the State Court of Auditors (TCE) determined that emergency hiring must follow strict guidelines. These rules are to avoid so-called “manufactured emergencies”, created due to a lack of planning or even intentionality on the part of a manager.
‘User security’
In a note, DER states that “emergency contracts are related to interventions necessary to meet unpredictable demands, especially after the impacts of rain on several state highways, which compromise user safety.” He added that, in parallel with these notices, the body “conducts regular contracting processes, planned in advance and under analysis by the control bodies, which will replace emergency contracts as soon as they are concluded”. He also informed that all hirings are “in accordance with the decree of the acting governor”.
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DER is under the presidency of engineer Pedro Henrique de Oliveira Ramos and has been the target of political disputes in recent months. With the fall of the former president of Alerj Rodrigo Bacellar (União) and the rise of Guilherme Delaroli (PL) to command the House, he now has the power to appoint works and employees of the department in place of his predecessor.
Another key municipality for the next election was also awarded notices from the DER in recent days. For Nova Iguaçu, the fourth largest electoral college in the state, the body allocated works planned in two tenders. Potential opponent of Douglas Ruas in the election for the governor of Rio, the former mayor of Rio Eduardo Paes (PSD) even courted the former mayor of the city of Baixada Rogério Lisboa (Progressistas) to be his deputy. Lisbon, however, ended up signing the deputy to form the ticket.
One of the notices, worth R$34 million, envisages the hiring of a company to build a connection between RJ-105, in Nova Iguaçu, and Estrada do Pedregoso, in Campo Grande. The agency also opened a auction to implement a cycle path and renovate sidewalks along almost the entire RJ-111, which runs through a section of the municipality. Part of the studies for this work were carried out in September 2025, but the process was stopped until the week before Castro’s resignation. From then on, the process accelerated. Within a month, it was published in the Official Gazette, with proposals expected to be received at the end of May.
In relation to personnel, the acting governor determines, in the decree published the day before yesterday, that all bodies inform the number of civil servants, employees who occupy commission positions and outsourced workers. The state government’s Human Resources Booklet already reveals a preview of the current situation. While the number of active public servants fell by 7.5% — between April 2021 (when Cláudio Castro took over the government after Wilson Witzel’s impeachment) and last March (when Castro left office) — the total number of commissioned officials jumped 47.86%, from 9,698 to 14,340. Spending on these positions also rose significantly: from R$36 million to R$85.9 million.
Few contests
The active employees, comparing these two periods, went from 165,866 to 153,830 employees. One of the explanations is that few public competitions were held during the Castro government. The objective was only to fill vacancies, as Rio needs to comply with cost containment rules imposed by the Fiscal Recovery Regime. There were no competitions for teachers and health professionals. But they were carried out for the Military and Civil Police, the Fire Department, the General Comptroller’s Office and the State Attorney General’s Office.
Insper economist André Luiz Marques explains that, although the financial impact of commissioners on the budget is not high, it is “a complicated sign”. During Castro’s administration, some positions, with higher salaries, were subdivided into smaller ones, to serve more people.
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— This is a mechanism to bring people from your (Castro) group into the government. Wherever these people are, they can generate an important managerial impact. So, where they are or were is more important than the quantity — he said.
The day after the publication of the mega-audit decree, the movement was more intense at the state government headquarters, with teams gathered in search of the information requested by Couto. At the Guanabara Palace, the new Secretary of the Civil House, Flávio Willeman, met with his predecessor, Marco Antônio Simões, who left the role to assume the Chief of Staff. Simões also maintained contact with Rodrigo Abel, Castro’s right-hand man, who was dismissed. Meanwhile, Couto maintained his dispatch routine at the Rio Court of Justice.
Last night, another change at the top level was confirmed: the 11 members of Cedae’s Board of Directors ratified the name of state attorney Rafael Rolim, who will replace Agnaldo Ballon as president of the state-owned company.
