The application was submitted to the Federal Court of Audit (TCU) by Deputy Prosecutor Lucas Rocha Furtado, based on a report aired by O Estado de S.Polo on Sunday.
The dispute revolves around an alleged plan drawn up by President Jair Bolsonaro at the end of last year to increase his support base in Congress, after he placed a parallel budget of three billion Omani rials in the amendments (a guaranteed tool for Brazilian parliamentarians in the face of) of the budget), and that, mostly , Was intended to purchase tractors and farm equipment at prices 259% above the reference values set by the government.
These funds are parallel to those stipulated in the traditional individual amendments that all senators and representatives are entitled to. And these additional resources were secretly concentrated in a group of parliamentarians who supported the government.
With the secret budget, the executive negotiated support for Arthur Lyra’s nominations to head the House of Representatives, in February, Rodrigo Pacheco to lead the Senate, and Bolsonaro-backed candidates who emerged as the winners.
“The situation requires, in my opinion, the role of the Budget Coordination Unit in fulfilling its constitutional powers of external oversight over the accounting, financial, budgetary, operating and inheritance nature of the Federal Public Administration, in order to determine the actions of the executive authority. Envisaged for approval and release of individual parliamentary amendments – some parliamentarians prefer in exchange for supporting government projects.
“These“ additional ”resources will, in principle, take place outside all constitutional, legal and regulatory rules, in violation of the principle of equality that directs the distribution of budgetary resources among parliamentarians under the system of individual amendments and without transparency requiring the use of public resources,” Furtado added.
In addition to the attorney general, Federal Rep. Marcelo Frixo has also submitted a request to TCU to investigate this parallel budget.
According to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, the Department of Regional Development and the state company Companhia de Desenvolvimento do Vales do São Francisco and Parnaíba (Codevasf) have been the preferred shortcut for lawmakers and senators to direct this money into actions, such as paving and installing wells and purchasing heavy machinery such as Tractors, bulldozers and tankers for municipalities considered strategic.
“It is absurd that the federal government continues to nurture its allies, including past and current presidents of parliament, to manage private interests with clear deviation of purpose and excessive bills. This money could have been used to fight the pandemic, especially in purchasing vaccines,” Freixo noted in Document delivered to TCU.
In a three-month investigation, O Estado de S.Polo gained access to 101 offices and found that Bolsonaro attributed to a group of lawmakers and senators the right to impose where billions of riyals would be invested, coming from a new method of modification called RP9.
Officially, however, Bolsonaro contested Congress’s attempt to limit the application of RP9 modification resources. The president considered this to be inconsistent with the “public interest” and stimulate “personality,” but it was precisely this scheme that he adopted, ignoring his behavior, according to the investigation by O Estado de S. Paulo.
