Codevasf: Centrão Turbine local opposition pre-candidates – 06/10/2023 – Power

From the highest point of the mountain where the village of Palmeira is located, in the rural area of ​​Amargosa (242 km from Salvador), it is possible to see a two-story house with a bucolic atmosphere with wide windows and parasols in the garden.

This farm, producing cocoa and cattle in its extensive pastures, is home to one of the associations that received a backhoe and irrigation kits as a donation from the federal state-owned company Codevasf in 2023.

The benefited entity is presided over by alternate councilor Renato Bastos, 38, allied with federal deputy Dal Barreto (União Brasil). Born in Amargosa, Dal Barreto is a businessman, deputy in his first term, exerts a strong influence on municipal politics and leads the opposition to the local mayor, Júlio Pinheiro (PT), whose management did not receive any equipment from the federal body.

The pattern is repeated in other small and medium-sized cities. Donations of equipment by Codevasf to associations boost allies of centrão deputies who will contest the 2024 municipal elections. Deliveries have a festive atmosphere and include banners, posters, balloons and even motorcades.

In general, donations with this profile circumvent the traditional path of delivering machines to city halls and feed the so-called “band B” of municipal politics – groups led by opposition politicians, former mayors and councilors with pretensions of higher flights.

Codevasf was created 50 years ago for irrigation projects in the semi-arid region, but the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government turned it into a “politicians’ shop”, through which congressmen use amendments to buy machinery, vehicles, equipment and paving works and direct products to their constituencies.

The model of change in Codevasf’s historical vocation took shape in Bolsonaro’s management, who handed over the state-owned company to the centrão in exchange for political support, but remains the same in the Lula government (PT), which still seeks to create a support base in the Congress.

The CGU (Controladoria-Geral da União) and the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União) have already shown that the choice of those awarded by the deputies does not follow technical criteria or government programs and depends on the pen of the politician who authored the amendment.

The differential under the Lula administration is the greater proportion of donations to private entities and less to city halls, thus increasing the risk of irregularities. Overall, the entities represent 361 of the 604 donations made by Codevasf this year. The beneficiaries range from religious philanthropies to associations of miners.

A Sheet analyzed the donations made by Codevasf from documents made available by the report in the Pinpoint tool.

In Amargosa, the BRL 340,000 backhoe loader was donated by Codevasf to the Community Association of Rural Producers of Palmeira, Água Branca and Adjacência, an entity founded in 2019 by Renato Bastos, an ally of deputy Dal Barreto.

Renato lives in the urban area, but he took advantage of the headquarters of the farm that belongs to his grandfather, in Palmeira, to house the headquarters of the association. The backhoe and a tractor with a plow received in 2022 are kept there.

The Palmeira village is surrounded by large farms. Most of the farmers who live in the village work as sharecroppers: they plant in the land of the farmers and share the profit of the production.

A Sheet was at the association’s headquarters on Wednesday (7). Renato wasn’t even with the machines. By telephone, he said that the backhoe was being used in Córrego village, but he did not reveal the exact location or the name of who had the equipment.

Renato says he is an ally of Dal Barreto, praises the deputy for the amendments, but denies the electoral use of the machines: “The association’s intention is not political. , it says.

In Palmeira, few farmers have used the equipment, like Virgílio Jesus Santos, 50. He paid R$124 for two hours of tractor use. The land he plowed to plant cassava does not belong to him – it belongs to a businesswoman who lives in the city and will have part of the profits.

A few meters away, a group of farmers peeled, crushed, pressed and roasted the cassava to transform it into flour using equipment purchased with their own resources.

They are not part of the Palmeira association and say they only see politicians in elections. One says they only show up every four years. On other days, says a farmer, “we can only see it from a helicopter”.

Donations to associations linked to politicians are repeated in other cities. In Sítio do Mato, western Bahia, Codevasf donated a tractor and a plow to the Bela Vista settlement association. But who made the money with the delivery was deputy Dal Barreto and councilor Lília da Cerâmica (PL).

The councilwoman delivered the equipment in a city square, with balloons hanging from the tractor and a banner in her name with thanks to the deputy. On a social network, she celebrated the partnership: “I become the first councilor to get a tractor delivered directly to the population”.

The deputy also acted in favor of donating machinery to an association in Itatim (BA), the champion city in donations by Codevasf in the Lula government. Who intermediated the machine was Clevison Nunes (PP), the Amigo Inho, defeated in the dispute for mayoralty in 2020.

In Cândido Sales, southwest Bahia, a backhoe was donated to the ADESCS association, which received the equipment in a festive atmosphere in a city square. The ceremony was led by former mayors Dudu Pontes and Lora Pontes and was attended by deputy Claudio Cajado (PP).

Founded in 1996, ADESCS (Association for Economic and Social Development of Cândido Sales) does not operate in rural areas: it is registered in the “culture and art” sector and has the concession of a community radio station.

In the same month, Claudio Cajado delivered a tractor to the Rural Association Filhos de Palmares in the city of Boninal. The delivery was made with the presence of former mayor Aurélio Nunes de Souza (PSD), candidate defeated in 2020 by mayor Celeste (PT). The same maneuver was used to meet the opposition in Piatã, in Chapada Diamantina.

In Teofilândia (BA), a backhoe and tractor were donated to associations and delivered by former mayor Tércio Nunes, a pre-candidate to return to office in 2024. The amendments were made by deputy Elmar Nascimento (União Brasil), one of the leaders of the centrão.

Professor at Emory University, in the United States, Natália Salgado Bueno analyzed Brazilian federal transfers from 2003 to 2015 and found that, like those made to entities, generally considered more neutral than those made to city halls, they can also be politicized.

She explains that, while transfers to mayors tend to go to allies of the central government, in the case of those made to entities, the tendency observed is that they are destined for non-aligned locations.

State says that donations have a technical opinion

Questioned several times by the report, Codevasf has maintained that the donation of machines to non-profit entities follows a technical opinion. “The company spares no efforts to ensure the proper use of goods destined for regional development initiatives”, he says.

Deputy Claudio Cajado classified it as “seeing a horn on a horse’s head” to associate deliveries of equipment to associations with municipal elections. He highlighted that “there is no election now” and that the parliamentary amendments are republican.

Deputy Dal Barreto stated that the amendments were not his own, but that he helped intermediate the requests with Codevasf. And he said he didn’t see any problems with these entities being led by allies, saying they look for people at the head of the associations to bring benefits to the population.

_{collaborated Cleiton Otavio and Nicholas Pretto}

_{The report was produced in partnership with Google from collections of documents published in the Pinpoint tool, access here.}