TCE approves accounts of Doria and Rodrigo with reservations – 06/28/2023 – Power

After postponing voting in an unprecedented way due to a so-called black box of tax benefits, the TCE-SP (São Paulo State Court of Auditors) approved this Wednesday (28) a favorable opinion with reservations on the government accounts for 2022, in management of João Doria (without party) and Rodrigo Garcia (PSDB).

Last week, the state decided to approach the government to collect the data, in a session with strong criticism of the Executive for not detailing the tax benefits.

The state government then sent a series of files to the court on the issue of tax benefits, under oath of secrecy. The data, however, still did not satisfy the directors.

“With what we received, even though we trust the public administration, we are not in a position to say ‘look, this has been taken care of’, because it hasn’t been”, said the rapporteur for the accounts, councilor Roque Citadini.

The TCE-SP, therefore, should carry out an operational audit on the matter from now on.

For the adviser, the government should answer which are the revenue waiver programs, the amounts spent in the year and whether the secretariat considers that the waivers achieved the objectives for which it was created.

In its support, the PGE (State Attorney General’s Office) continued to support the need to keep the data hidden and, therefore, stated that it passed part of the data under transfer of secrecy.

The rapporteur questioned the argument for secrecy. “I wonder what needs secrecy there? In what capacity is it necessary to be protected by secrecy? Can society not know what the revenue waiver programs are?”, Questioned Citadini.

Counselor Dimas Ramalho also defended that Alesp (São Paulo Legislative Assembly) should also receive the data.

“I recognize that there was an effort these days to reach a conclusion, unfortunately it did not arrive. There were two annexes that arrived recently and it would be impossible from yesterday to today to analyze in depth”, he said.

“I think that more serious than not reaching us this data, is not reaching the population of São Paulo, is reaching who was elected to oversee the accounts, which is the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo”.

The TCE Accounts Board stated that it did not find in the material data on waiver by modality or sector of activity for 2022, estimated total waiver per beneficiary and monitoring of socioeconomic benefits.

At Alesp (São Paulo Legislative Assembly), the base of the past government boycotted a CPI (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) on the subject, which was chaired by deputy Paulo Fiorilo (PT).

The president of the TCE, Sidney Beraldo, however, highlighted the efforts of the Treasury ministers in the state to move forward on the subject, although he claims that the data are still far from meeting the court’s needs.

The counselors were against the position of the Public Ministry of Accounts, which opined for an unfavorable opinion and even charged punishments such as fines.

According to the agency, although there is some new information in the new material, the government sent several others that had already been forwarded and the data is incomplete.