Paulo Veras, Marcela Balbino and Vinícius Sales
18 August 2017
Twenty-two legislators spent on companies that the Court of Auditors failed to confirm if they exist
For two years, seven companies that the State Court of Auditors (TCE) claims to exist only on paper received R$ 1.7 million from the Legislative Assembly of Pernambuco (Alepe) for services that would have been provided in the offices of 20 lawmakers and two former legislators from 11 parties, from both the government and the opposition. The House announced that all money will be returned to the public service.
The money came from compensation funds. The parliamentarians can receive it as a reimbursement for a public expenditure necessary for the execution of their mandates that had been paid in advance.
We analyzed, one by one, the monthly payment records of all 54 state lawmakers who served in State Legislative since 2015. Twenty-two of them hired the companies questioned by the Court of Auditors, including the president of the House, Guilherme Uchoa (PDT), and the mayors of Olinda, Lupércio (SD), and Carpina, Manuel Botafogo (PDT). Lawmakers say the services were provided. Even so, behind the scenes, the issue alarmed politicians who fear being identified with irregularities close to the election year.
The suspicious hires came to light after the lawyer Antônio Campos (Pode) denounced Lupércio, during the campaign for the Olinda City Hall, for hiring “dummy companies”. The Court of Auditors investigated the companies and visited their headquarters, but failed to verify their existence. The main services hired were: copies and binding; consultancy; transportation leasing and accommodation; vehicle parts and services.
Four of them are registered in the same place, in the Peixinhos district, in Olinda. At that address, a stationery and a car rental company, for example, should operate. There, the Court of Auditors found only one advertisement for TR Car Rental. But not the office.
That is not the only problem in the provision of services that cost the public money a million dollar figure. S & Silva Fast Deliveries was the one that most rendered service to legislators: it received R$ 622.1 thousand. Despite the name, the audit points out that it does not have a vehicle to carry out the main activity. “The company partner has only one motorcycle”, adds the report. In the records, it offered everything since heliographic copies and bookbinding, until parts, accessories and services for vehicles, as well as graphic services and expedient material.
Councilor Teresa Duere's rigorous vote says that the Court will institute a specific process to investigate the fact that other offices, besides Lupércio's, have hired the same companies that she believes cannot prove receipt of public money. The mayor of Olinda, however, escaped a harsher punishment for having anticipated and returned all the value to the public service, after contracting a loan. This may have encouraged other deputies to do the same.
Although the amounts are large, Legislative's transparency page is not accessible and makes it difficult to identify which companies offered services to more than one deputy and the total amount paid to each supplier.
Former commissioners operate suspicious companies that received R$ 1.7 million from Alepe
Paulo Veras
19 August 2017
Court of Auditors shows that partners of enterprises that received compensation from Alepe had good traffic in the Legislative
Former commissioners and small properties are behind the seven companies benefited by R$ 1.7 million in funds from the Legislative Assembly, which the Court of Auditors was unable to prove their existence. We were at the addresses of six of them, but we were unable to find suppliers that provided services ranging from transport leasing to office material for 20 state lawmakers and two former legislators during last two years.
The audit shows that before providing important services to parliamentarians, members of the companies already had a good influence in the legislature. S & Silva Fast Deliveries, which the Court of Auditors says does not have any vehicle, is managed by Sérgio José da Silva and by Igor Gustavo de Lucena. Sérgio was a commissioner at Alepe between 2009 and 2015, and Igor works for an outsourced company at the House.
Number 54 on Sun's Street, in Olinda, where the firm was supposed to operate, is a closed property. According to neighbors, the house served, in the last two years, as the headquarters of a motorcycle club that moved in the last month. At Alepe, Sérgio was special advisor to deputy José Humberto Cavalcanti (PTB). The parliamentarian's office spent R$ 34.2 thousand on the company. We tried to hear José Humberto, but he did not answer our calls. Neither did Sérgio. He was dismissed from Congress by congressman Fernando Monteiro (PP), his most recent boss, until the end of the investigation.
We also did not find any house at the number 145 on 23th November Street, in Peixinhos, where four companies should operate. The president of the neighborhood association, José Flávio Alves do Nascimento, owns one of them: the José Flávio Alves do Nascimento Micro Enterprise. According to the Court of Auditors, Analaiza Florêncio da Silva is a partner in two others: TR Car Rental, which adopts “Flávio Nascimento” as a trade name, and FF Consultancy, which records its taxes with the email flavionascimento@oi.com.br.
In the defense sent to the Court of Auditors, the mayor of Olinda and former lawmaker Lupércio (SD) says that Flávio presented himself as a representative of the car rental company. The audit also says that Tula Rouse Beltrão de Lima was one of the partners in the deal, despite Flávio signing the receipts. Tula is also a partner at Beltrão & Assunção Courses e Advisory, another company targeted by auditors.
Before opening business, everyone worked at Legislative. Analaiza was parliamentary secretary of deputy Everaldo Cabral (PP) in 2012. Flávio held the same post in the office of Gustavo Negromonte (PMDB) between 2013 and 2014. He was replaced by Tula in that position. Everaldo and Gustavo do not appear on the list of deputies who have allocated resources to any of the firms.
We went to the house that the neighbors say belongs to Flávio, but nobody answered. In a clinic connected to the neighborhood association, that works on the same street, a man who declined to be named said Flávio would only be there on Monday. Gustavo Negromonte claims he was unaware that the former advisers owned companies. Everaldo Cabral did not return contact.
At Rio Doce and Jardim Atlântico, neighbors said they remembered a stationery shop at the addresses that the Court of Auditors points to as being from the company Shirleidy Osny Dantas Stationery. The auditors went there twice and were unable to confirm the company's existence. The firm continued to sign contracts with the Legislative until December 2016, although employees working in neighboring stores ensure that the place closed more than a year ago.
“There was a stationery here. But it's been over a year since they left and disappeared. They sold stationery, detergent, bleach, did Internet work, photocopying, various services. Everything. Toilet paper they sold too”, says Carlos Artur, owner of an auto products store on Jornalista Edson Regis Street. Today, the place became a diner.
On Coronel Frederico Lundgren Avenue, there is an açaí shop at the address of the firm that served lawmakers. “It was a stationery store. I didn't get to know the girl who was the tenant. It closed a lot more than a year ago. People came here looking for her, but she was gone”, says Débora Valença, a shopkeeper.
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