Nunes Management makes contracts with signs of marked letters – 04/12/2024 – Power

A state-owned company run by Ricardo Nunes (MDB), SP Obras, had a proliferation of contracts without bidding for engineering services for works on schools in the municipal network with signs of marked letters.

A fine-toothed comb in contracting points to a pattern of budget requests from some companies, and the criteria for the multiplication of contracts with similar characteristics is subject to investigation by a supervisory body, repeating aspects that suggest fraud against the competition, according to experts.

A Sheet identified that almost half of a total of 111 contracts signed last year involve disputes between companies controlled by the same family group, some of which have registered offices in unidentified residential properties on the outskirts of São Paulo.

The Nunes management denies irregularities, says it is unaware of the family ties between the company owners and claims to have aimed for the most advantageous prices.

In addition to the fragmentation of contracts into smaller values, in order to justify the exemption from bidding, the proposals between the competitors are similar and, in almost two dozen contracts, only requests for offers from the same family group had been included in the processes.

SP Obras received R$1 billion to carry out readjustments and construction of new teaching units at the end of 2021, following a maneuver by the Nunes administration to reach the mandatory percentage of education spending, of 25%.

With the record funding, the public company began to carry out an unprecedented number of contracts – including those without a bidding process.

The justification for the exemptions involves the fragmentation of services into small contracts, below R$ 100 thousand, which allows the adoption of this modality instead of traditional competition.

Direct hires below this range went from 15, in 2022, to at least 111 in 2023, according to data from the SP Obras portal. In total, contracts worth less than R$100,000 each were signed with two dozen companies and cost public coffers R$6.5 million last year.

The matter led the TCM (Court of Auditors of the Municipality) to question the city hall whether, by giving up bidding on larger lots, it would not be avoiding competition in the traditional model. At least 31 contracts are for values ​​between R$95 thousand and R$99 thousand, close to the limit of R$100 thousand. The Nunes management denies irregularities.

In one of the exemptions analyzed by the report, SP Obras justifies the non-use of a price registration record “due to the deadline required by the process” and states that prices are the same or lower.

The services acquired via direct contracting are mainly engineering, in many cases for projects in municipal schools. In 50 of the 111 contracts analyzed, the winners were three companies that belong to the same family group: SMS Geotecnia, Victoriane Construções and Craf Engenharia, which will receive around R$2 million.

Victoriane is in the name of Ane Elize Araújo and one of its managers is Victor Augusto Araújo, both brothers. Another brother is Carlos Roberto Araújo Filho, partner at Craf. The SMS company is in the name of Flávia Muniz Araújo, who, over the phone, confirmed to the report that she is Victor’s wife.

Documents sent to city hall suggest that the connection between the companies goes beyond kinship. One of them features Flávia and Carlos among the technicians responsible for Victoriane, for example.

In 17 contracts, the report only found requests for proposals made by the city hall to these same three companies attached to the processes.

One of these cases referred to a survey, technical report on foundations, planialtimetric survey, among other services, for a children’s school in Vila Matilde (east zone). SMS won with a budget of R$38,248.77, R$136.31 below Victoriane’s proposal (R$38,385.08) — in third place, Craf suggested R$40,325.60.

A Sheet went to the addresses listed in contracts signed by the Araújo family companies, on the outskirts of the southern zone of the capital of São Paulo, but did not find any of those responsible on March 21st, a Thursday.

Victoriane, a company with a share capital of R$ 2 million, has a simple house, with clothes on the line, in Parque Santo Antônio, where no one answered the company’s insistent calls. Sheet.

Until 2023, Flávia Muniz de Araújo’s company had its headquarters in a house in an alley, which, according to neighbors, is her parents’ residence, in Jardim Alfredo.

Later, the company’s name was updated to SMS and the address changed to a coworking space on Avenida Engenheiro Luís Carlos Berrini, in the south zone, where the report also did not find the engineer. The coworking receptionist stated that Flávia rents the space and occasionally shows up.

Only Craf, owned by Carlos Alberto, has a property that appears to be commercial, although no one answered the intercom.

In 2023, a court official went to the location looking for Carlos Alberto for four days and wrote in his report: “I clapped my hands, pressed the doorbell and shouted for someone from home, but I was not answered. Neighbors at the address indicated that the warehouse is partially unoccupied and rarely sees movement in the area”.

For public administration professor at Unesp (Universidade Estadual Paulista) Alvaro Martim Guedes, there is evidence that in cases like this (with legal entities that belong to individuals with a degree of kinship), the companies are operating a kind of small cartel. “And if three companies are participating in the same competition, and each one wins one of them, there is a clear indication that collusion has occurred.”

Faced with the situation described by the report, retired professor of administrative law at the Faculty of Law at USP Odete Medauar follows the same line. “It seems clear that there is some kind of trick, in quotation marks, to disguise a competition when in fact those involved are the same, with different names. That being said, it is actually a simulation of competition, but it is not a real competition”, she said.

The TCM stated in a note that it is analyzing “the issue of the complaint about alleged irregularities in contracts signed by São Paulo Obras” in contracts for exemption and non-requirement of bidding, in 2022 and 2023, with educational funds. A representation was made to the body by councilor Hélio Rodrigues (PT).

City Hall says it does not know any relationship and that it sought a more advantageous price

Ricardo Nunes management stated that it is “unaware of any family ties between the mentioned legal entities, reiterating that hiring is carried out based on market research, aiming for the most advantageous price, technical qualification and availability to meet demands”.

The city hall states that 23 companies, all included in the municipal register, were hired through layoffs. For the administration, “this fact highlights the smoothness of the process, not suggesting any favoritism or irregularity in hiring.”

The administration still denies splitting the hiring, justifying that services were performed in different locations and at different times. Furthermore, he says that direct hires have a negligible value compared to the total.

Also accounting for a case of non-enforceability, they total R$46 million in 2023, from a total of more than R$1.4 billion in contracts.

The reporter contacted Flávia, from SMS, Victor, from Victoriane, and Carlos Roberto, from Craf by phone. The three promised to return to requests for clarification, but then did not respond further.

Questions were also sent via WhatsApp and email since April 2, but there was no response.