Government transfers R$200,000 to MST cooperatives to buy cars

Summary of this report:

• In March, the Ministry of Agrarian Development transferred R$ 200,000 as incentives to the Terra Livre cooperative, linked to the MST. The funds were used to purchase cars for the cooperative.
• PT Edegar Pretto, president of the National Supply Company (Conab), linked to the MDA, is the brother of Adelar Pretto, who was director of Terra Livre at the time of the transfer. The transfer took place a week after Edegar took office.
• The cooperative, which has already received nearly R$ 8 million in federal funds, was recently sanctioned for breaching the food delivery contract for school lunches.
• Between 2022 and 2023, Terra Livre received millionaire transfers from public bodies, most of them waiving a bidding process.

The federal government’s Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture (MDA) recently allocated R$200,000 to the Terra Livre cooperative, in Rio Grande do Sul, linked to the MST. The values ​​were passed on on March 31 as a development term, which in practice is a partnership mechanism between the public administration and civil society organizations with the objective of making public interest actions feasible.

Despite that, the People’s Gazette found that the funds transferred are intended to purchase three vehicles for visiting the cooperative’s customers in order to sell the food produced. According to the director of Terra Livre, Carlos Pansera, the sale of these products would aim to “strengthen family farming” and foster “a structured and defined marketing network”, which, in his view, would justify the necessary public interest required for the transfer.

The transfer also draws attention for another reason: the state coordinator of the MST in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Adelar Pretto – who was on Terra Livre’s corporate board as the company’s director until May of this year, two months before the transfer of R$200,000 by the government – is the brother of the president of the National Supply Company (Conab), linked to the MDA, from which the transfer came.

Edegar Pretto, who has been a member of the Workers’ Party (PT) since 1989 and has served as state deputy for Rio Grande do Sul for three terms, was appointed president of Conab a week before the transfer of resources to Terra Livre. Later this year, other cooperatives, some of them linked to the MST, also received similar transfers that reached R$ 800,000 under terms of promotion.

Despite having recently left the corporate structure of the cooperative, the brother of the president of Conab holds the position of director at the cooperative Agropecuária Vista Alegre (Coopava), located in the municipality of Piratini, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The entity is part of the network of cooperatives in six states that make up Terra Livre – all of them linked to the MST and most of them commanded by leaders of the movement.

Government says transfer comes from parliamentary amendment, but does not provide information

The report asked the Ministry of Agrarian Development for clarification on the terms agreed with the cooperative, especially in relation to the public interest that the transfer for the purchase of vehicles would be fulfilling. In response, the portfolio reported that the development term was signed two days before the end of the previous government and that the appeal comes from the indication of a parliamentary amendment.

“What happened recently was just the ex officio extension of the term, which is the obligation of the grantor when it causes a delay in the release of resources, limited the extension to the exact period of the verified delay. The original term was from 12/30/2022 to 12/30/2025, the funds were released only on 3/31/2023, which is why the official extension should be given for a period of 03 months (time of delay in release ), as can be seen in the publication changing the end of the term from 12/30/2025 to 03/30/2026”, says a note from the ministry.

Considering that there was no adequate answer to the question about the terms of the agreement with the cooperative, the report made a new request for information about the terms of the transfer, also asking which congressman would have indicated the resources. The ministry did not return to the contacts of the People’s Gazette.

Terra Livre’s CNPJ has active pending due to breach of contract with municipality of RS

Benefiting from federal resources, the cooperative Terra Livre currently has a pendency registered in the National Register of Disreputable and Suspended Companies for breaching a contract signed with the city hall of Nova Friburgo, in Rio de Janeiro.

After a public call, in April of last year the municipal government signed a R$ 890,000 contract with the company for the purchase of powdered milk and fruits and vegetables for snacks in the municipal schools. The contract was terminated five months later, as the products were being delivered beyond the established deadlines. In total, R$ 330,000 were passed on to the company for items delivered during the period.

“As soon as there were delays in delivery, alerts were issued by the municipality, which culminated in the contractor being penalised”, informed the City Hall of Nova Friburgo to People’s Gazette. The penalty applied was a ban on participating in bids and contracts with the municipality for two years.

In the report, Terra Livre reported that the delays occurred as a result of “bureaucratic and accounting confusion” and that the company filed a lawsuit to reverse the sanction. “After signing the contract, there were four delivery requests and due to bureaucratic and accounting confusion that occurred, mainly due to inconsistencies in the requirements on the part of the Municipality of Nova Friburgo, there was a delay in the delivery of the products, which motivated the agency to apply the sanction ”.

A People’s Gazette he also asked Terra Livre’s management for clarification on the reasons for the recent departure of Adelar Pretto from the company’s corporate structure. The company did not respond to specific inquiries. The report was unable to locate the state coordinator of the MST.

The cooperative recently closed two millionaire contracts without bidding

The Terra Livre cooperative has already received a total of R$ 7.98 million in federal resources, especially from the Army and federal educational institutions. Most transfers are exempt from bidding.

Between 2022 and 2023, the entity closed two millionaire contracts without bidding – one of them under the justification of “non-enforceability” and the other of “dismissal” of bidding. The first, signed in January last year with the Federal Center for Technological Education of Minas Gerais (Cefet-MG), is in the order of R$ 1.1 million. On the Transparency Portal, the appeal is listed as “non-enforceability of bidding”.

Law 14.133/2021, known as the New Bidding Law, provides that the mechanism may be unenforceable when there are not enough competitors in the market or when the items to be purchased are only offered by a company or supplier. However, in this specific case, Cefet-MG purchased traditional products from the basic food basket. There were 9,000 kits with food items.

The report contacted the body, linked to the Ministry of Education, and requested further clarification on the unenforceability of the bidding applied in the case. As of the time of writing this report, there has been no response.

In March of this year, the Army Command signed a contract worth almost R$ 1.2 million for the supply of milk and cheese for one year to serve military personnel in Santa Maria and Itaara, in Rio Grande do Sul. Exemption from bidding may occur in specific cases, already determined by law, in which all the bureaucracy of the bidding process would not fit. Some of these cases are hiring for small amounts and emergency situations, such as wars, public calamities and works to prevent landslides. There are, however, other hypotheses in which it can occur, as is the case with the acquisition of perishable foods.

To the report, the Army advisor explained that the circumstances of the purchase have to do with federal decree 10.880/2021, which provides for the waiver of bidding in the acquisition of food from family farming – a category in which MST cooperatives fit. The advisory also informed that the purchase sought to comply with Decree 8,473/2015, signed by then President Dilma Rousseff (PT), which obliges public bodies to acquire a minimum percentage of food products from these cooperatives.

Precisely with an eye on this gap, Terra Livre acquired the cars with the transfer of the government in order, according to a note from the cooperative, to increase the volume of visits to “town halls, the Army, state schools and other entities” and, consequently, increase profits . A People’s Gazette will update this report if the Ministry of Agriculture points out what would be, concretely, the public interest related to the transfer.