Ex-minister says Bolsonaro asked for watch to be returned – 03/10/2023 – Panel

Former Minister of Tourism, Gilson Machado Neto claims that former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) asked him to return the luxury watch he received from the Qatari government during a trip in October 2019. However, he says he heard from the Commission of Public Ethics of the Presidency that it would be impolite to send the gift back and therefore decided to keep it.

Last Wednesday (1st), the Federal Court of Auditors notified the Ethics Commission, said that the receipt of expensive gifts goes beyond public “principles of reasonableness and morality” and suggested the return of the objects.

When contacted by the Panel on Wednesday (8) to comment on TCU’s recommendation, Machado sent a message saying that the ethics body authorized him to continue with the watch.

This Friday (10), he published a video with a different interpretation on his social networks.

“In 2020 [2021], I was still president of Embratur, I was the first person to look for President Bolsonaro, I said that I had received this watch. It even came to me through the Presidency of the Republic. And he instructed me to return the watch. At the same moment, I took the watch and sent it back to the Presidency”, says Machado.

“I was told there that I couldn’t return it, due to the simple fact that the Ethics Committee had met and released it. And that it would be a matter of inelegance even with who gave the watch. No problem. I am available to the TCU, in I never said that I would not return it, for a return, if so”, he completes.

Reports have shown that Bolsonaro has taken a different stance on jewelry and other luxury goods sent by the Saudi Arabian government.

The president and members of his government insistently sought access to a package held by the Federal Revenue Service at Guarulhos Airport customs. An advisor to former minister Bento Albuquerque tried to enter with the jewels hidden in a backpack, without declaring that he had the items, contrary to the legislation.

Bolsonaro also added to his private collection another package of gifts sent by the government of Saudi Arabia in 2021.

According to the TCU and documents from the Public Ethics Commission of the Presidency, four ministers at the time received the watches: Onyx Lorenzoni (Casa Civil), Augusto Heleno (Institutional Security Office), Ernesto Araújo (Foreign Relations) and Osmar Terra (Citizenship ).

In addition to them, Sergio Segovia, president of Apex (Brazilian Agency for the Promotion of Exports and Investments); Gilson Machado, president of Embratur and who would later become Minister of Tourism, Caio Megale, then head of the Special Office of Institutional Relations at the Ministry of Economy, and Roberto Abdala, then Brazilian ambassador in Doha.

Abdala and Megale took a different attitude from the others, before any questioning. The ambassador immediately “arranged the return of the gift, a wristwatch by the Hublot brand, due to its high cost”, as reported by the TCU.

Megale was responsible for bringing Brazilian authorities into action when he formally questioned the Ethics Commission of the Presidency on whether it would be ethical to keep a Cartier brand watch that he received from an assistant of the Presidency of the Republic, when he was already in Brazil, just over a year ago. month after the trip to Qatar.

The economist told the column that he sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance on Monday (6) asking for information on the procedures he should adopt to relinquish the object.

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