TCU goes back and frees Lula’s secretary from conviction – 02/27/2023 – Power

The new Special Secretary for Federative Affairs of the Presidency of the Republic, André Ceciliano, had a victory at the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União) on the last 15th, the eve of his appointment by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

He managed to reverse a 2016 court decision that judged his accounts as irregular and condemned him to refund to public coffers the same amount as the federal transfer for a work that was never completed.

At the time, the TCU found Ceciliano guilty of irregularities in the construction of a hospital in Paracambi, a municipality in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, where he was mayor from January 2001 to December 2008.

The construction resulted from an agreement signed in 2003 between the National Health Fund and the municipality in the amount of R$ 1.2 million in federal funds — around R$ 5 million in current values.

The resources were all released between October 2004 and December 2005, during Ceciliano’s management, who ended his term in 2008 without having completed the work.

The process was opened in 2010, after a representation of the MPF-RJ (Federal Public Ministry in Rio de Janeiro), which announced works funded with federal public resources that had not been carried out in the municipality, including the General Hospital of Paracambi.

After several extensions, the contract for the work ended in August 2011, with a final deadline for accountability in October of the same year.

In June 2011, a TCU inspection team visited the hospital and verified the absolutely precarious state of the building’s facilities, initiating the investigation of the facts. The court also took steps in 2013 and 2014 and promoted Ceciliano’s summons and hearing.

At the time, the court concluded that there was a loss of federal public resources invested in the hospital and considered that Ceciliano presented a flawed project, did not apply the municipal counterpart, which would be R$ 300,000, and did not take care of documents that prove the expenses incurred. .

It also assessed that the current secretary did not act to comply with the purpose of the agreement and did not observe criteria of technical quality, costs and expected deadlines; in addition to not having adopted measures to prevent the deterioration of what had already been built.

The TCU manifestation was appealed, but the court upheld the decision in a 2017 judgment.

Ceciliano also filed another appeal, also rejected by judgment in 2022; and another against that decision in the same year, which was judged on the last 15th.

He claimed that there was an omission in the decision regarding the analysis of documents he had gathered that year, which the former mayor said was contrary to the constitutional guarantee of full defense and adversarial proceedings.

Minister Walton Alencar, who reported the new appeal, did not accept the request and said that the lack of express pronouncement on new points does not characterize an omission, remediable by means of a motion for clarification.

“When one verifies the level of irregularities of a mayor who spent three years with all public resources, did not carry out the work, and intends to evade his responsibilities, I feel a little embarrassed”, he said.

During his vote, Alencar also harshly criticized Lula’s new secretary, saying that he made “everything a mess”, even mentioning his current position.

“In examining the process, I verified that Mr. André Ceciliano, who incidentally is said to be Secretary General of the Presidency of the Republic, practiced the following acts, presented the process of the project that originated the flawed agreement, promoted the undue expense in contracting the company for the construction of the health unit in the municipality, that is, everything is irregular”, he said.

He also declared that the money for the work “simply eroded away” and was invested in a project “which is good for nothing”. “The hospital never existed, I am very sorry for the population that left the decent hospital,” he added.

Alencar’s vote, however, was won this time by the other ministers, including Vital do Rêgo, who had previously voted to condemn Ceciliano.

He claimed that, in a new analysis of documents and reports that were contradictory, he found that the secretary cannot answer for the non-completion of the work, since the inertia would have been the successor manager in the city hall.

“The records of abandonment of the work, depredation, vandalism and deterioration do not appear in any report of the period in which the appellant was in charge of the city hall more than seven months after the appellant left the position of mayor”, he declared.

He also said that he could not fail to point out that “the poor quality of the inspection reports by the Ministry of Health allowed for misinterpretations by those who evaluated the documentation of the records”.

The change in the court’s understanding was celebrated by Ceciliano, who until the beginning of this year held the position of president of Alerj (Legislative Assembly of Rio), as a state deputy for the PT.

He was also mentioned in the “cracks” episode, a lawsuit filed based on a COAF report that pointed out actions considered atypical by advisors to state deputies.

Ceciliano’s office led in volume of suspicious financial transactions indicated in the report, totaling R$49 million between 2011 and 2017. He denied the accusations.

A Sheet Ceciliano said that TCU’s decision had nothing to do with his appointment to the Presidency and that he left the City Hall management with 90% of the work completed and 80% of the resources released. He added that the remaining 20% ​​for the conclusion of the work, which would correspond to R$ 300 thousand, were only released in 2009, in the successor administration.

“The counterpart from the city hall was also released, contrary to what Minister Walton said, all that was left to do was paint and lower the ceiling for the work to finish. The rest of the resources were only received by the successor management, which did not continue the work. A process This was also opened in the Federal Court of Rio and I was not found guilty”, he said.

In addition, the secretary stated that, in the oldest appeals, he was condemned by “default”, when no defense is presented, and called Alencar’s contrary opinion persecution. He also stated that he was not definitively convicted until remedies were exhausted.