Lula’s CGU dilutes the anti-corruption sector – 03/21/2023 – Power

The Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government diluted the CGU (Controladoria Geral da União) sector related to the fight against corruption and started to prioritize the use of the body for prevention and transparency work.

The remodeling of the CGU, which has been carried out under the command of Minister Vinícius de Carvalho, extinguished the Secretariat for Combating Corruption and demoted the Special Operations Directorate to a coordination located within the office of another structure in the folder.

The special operations sector, which was part of the extinct secretariat, promotes investigations to combat deviations and misuse of public resources.

Officially, the CGU has said that, even with the change, the function of combating corruption “permeates all the work of the Comptroller General of the Union”. However, servers heard by the Sheet privately point out that, in practice, the theme was put in the background.

They claim that, both in the states and in Brasília, people specialized in the area of ​​combating corruption have been replaced in key positions by servants related to prevention and transparency.

The CGU is the body responsible for internal control of the federal government. Its functions are to act in the defense of public assets, to prevent and combat corruption and to increase management transparency.

Part of the attributions of the Secretariat for Combating Corruption were transferred to the newly created Secretariat for Private Integrity, which encourages good practices in the private sector to prevent irregularities.

The leniency agreements of companies and the processes that intend to make companies responsible for harmful acts against the public administration are also in charge of this secretariat.

Regarding this area of ​​activity of the CGU, Vinícius de Carvalho has already criticized the high fines applied to companies in leniency agreements provided for in the Anti-Corruption Law.

Another part of the former anti-corruption sector was transferred to the Federal Secretariat for Internal Control, which is responsible for audits. It is in an office within it that the special operations area was allocated. To date, no titular coordinator has been appointed, and the post is being filled by a replacement.

The special operations, which the CGU usually carries out in partnership with agencies such as the Federal Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, are aimed at combating irregularities and the misapplication of public resources.

The CGU calculates that since 2003 these operations have resulted in a total of more than R$ 6 billion in diversion of public funds.

Sought, the agency says that the change in the structure was made to facilitate the connection between the audit services and the performance of special operations, which it believes to be more effective in identifying illicit acts.

There are also attributions of the former secretariat that were absorbed by the Executive Secretariat of the CGU.

Questioned about the fragmentation of the secretariat, the CGU states that it continues to strengthen the fight against corruption, “but with the clarity that the objective is to promote a culture of integrity in the public and private sectors, strengthening government institutions and guaranteeing good public services” .

It also argues that there has been no reduction in the number of employees dedicated to investigating cases of corruption.

“The fight against corruption is the responsibility of the CGU as a whole, so there is no area exclusively dedicated to this topic”, says the body in a note.

“Even in the previous structure, the idea of ​​an area exclusively focused on combating corruption did not hold up, because the other areas of the body also contributed to the fight against corruption.”

According to the CGU, there was a reorganization of areas that were dispersed, and now they start to act in complementary areas. The ministry claims that this helps the body to “act in the promotion of private integrity and in the prevention, identification and accountability of acts of corruption”.

In an interview with Sheet in February of this year, a month after taking office, Carvalho stated that he intended to lead the body to resume a relevant role in the application of the Anti-Corruption Law and to take stock of the ten years that law has been in force.

“The anti-corruption policy cannot be forgotten, set aside. But it cannot be done in defiance of the rule of law. by the political agenda. And that can no longer happen in the country,” he said at the time.

During the Bolsonaro government, the controllership was criticized, among other things, for maintaining various secrecy of documents considered to be of public interest and for hindering the application of the Law on Access to Information.

Under Lula, the CGU determined that the ex-president’s vaccination card, classified as confidential by the previous administration, be disclosed. The release, however, still depends on a government investigation into the possible insertion of false data in the document.