Author: Yan Boechat and Larissa Domingos

Source: ISTOÉ - SP - MAGAZINE - 31/10/2009

At the beginning of the month, the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) reached a symbolic number: it supervised the transfer of federal resources in 30% of Brazilian municipalities, something close to 1,6 thousand small cities, with less than 500 thousand inhabitants. Individually, the reports sent by CGU inspectors show cases of cheap corruption spread across the country, but when viewed together, they draw a gloomy scenario.

According to a survey by the inspection body of the Executive Branch, 95% of the cities visited by CGU agents have problems in the administration of federal resources that have been passed on to them in recent years. These problems, in most cases, are in fact indications of misappropriation of public money, which often translates into fraudulent bids, proof of spending on cold and fake notes or the pure and simple appropriation of resources by municipal agents. Although small, these cities received R $ 11 billion from programs linked to ministries in the last six years.

The CGU data show an important fact that is often overlooked by the vast majority of Brazilians. They show that the corruption that drains billions of reais from public coffers is not always linked to huge numbers. In general, when the robbery comes to the surface it brings with it scandals involving bigwigs of politics, well-structured mafias and large companies that live and feed on schemes of favors that have perpetuated for decades in a country where the public and the private insist on getting confused .

Overpriced remedies

In the city of Paulínia (SP), CGU inspectors found that the municipality, under the command of ex-mayor Edson Moura (photo), paid R $ 335 more each month for a batch of about 300 medicines. The city closed a drug supply contract with a 193% overprice. The municipality's challenges were not accepted by CGU

But the cases that make the pages of newspapers and ignite the mood of the opposition and the government - depending on the accused - are just the entrance to a winding and obscure labyrinth that takes root even in the deepest layers of the state. It is through these crooked paths, far from the eyes of public opinion, that an army of mayors, municipal secretaries, small businesses and agents of public power of all kinds take advantage of the State's inability to inspect its resources to steal the money that should be used in building a fairer and more modern country. It is like the old image of an Antarctic iceberg. Under the tip that floats, there is a mass with destructive power much greater than what the eyes can see.

The work done by CGU is small when compared to the universe of loopholes that public administrators have to defraud the State. The supervisory body only looks at resources transferred by the Union, and in a way that can be considered even superficial. The municipalities are chosen by lot and respecting regional proportionality. After being selected, the controllership inspectors spend about two weeks in the city scanning the funds transferred by the Union. “The city halls still receive state funds, collect their own taxes and are not inspected by those who should do this, the Courts of Accounts, who do not they have technical capacity and a lot of political influence, "says Fábio Angélico, country coordinator for Transparência Brasil, a non-governmental organization that works to fight corruption in several countries." The situation in the municipalities is simply terrible.

No air conditioning

The municipality of Charqueadas (RS) does not have a Senegalese style summer, but part of its population seems to have a special appreciation for air conditioning. At the end of 2008, CGU found that seven devices of around R $ 15, acquired with resources from the National Health Fund, disappeared from health posts. The city did not know how to explain their fate or other missing equipment, budgeted at R $ 48 thousand

CGU reports show that the practice of diverting public funds in small Brazilian cities is as widespread as the certainty of impunity on the part of criminals. The gross frauds are repeated by the hundreds and explain a frightening lack of responsibility with the taxpayers' money. In some cases, the methods used by public administrators to narrowly divert resources do not cross the border of absurdity. "The white-collar criminal knows that if he is caught and convicted, he will only be punished in ten years, maybe 20 years," says the chief minister of the Comptroller General of the Union, Jorge Hage. "This absurdity created a sense of impunity that is even more pronounced in small municipalities."

Cities inspected by CGU received R $ 11 billion in federal transfers

It was probably with this certainty that those responsible for the Secretariat of Works of the small and isolated city of Boa Vista de Ramos, in the middle of the Brazilian Amazon, withdrew more than R $ 730 thousand from the city hall account eight days before the term of office of the elected mayor ended. in 2002. The resources from the Ministry of Cities would be used to build the first sewage treatment plant in the small municipality of 13 thousand inhabitants. The money should only come out of the account when the company winning the bidding starts the works. But that's not what happened. When CGU inspectors arrived in the city, the place where the station was supposed to be installed was occupied by five houses. None of them even had a rudimentary sanitation system.

In the city of Casa Nova, located in the north of Bahia, the controllership inspectors discovered a case as or more emblematic of this corruption that no one sees. Through resources from the Fund for Maintenance and Development of Elementary Education (Fundef), the city government authorized the local Banco do Brasil agency to settle personal debts of citizens who did not even have a direct relationship with the government. Altogether, Casa Nova spent R $ 478 that should be invested in the city's schools to pay off the debts of 18 people who had borrowed from the bank through direct consumer credit.

The two cases also explain the weakness of the State's control systems. It is unbelievable that the withdrawal of almost R $ 1 million and the payment of personal debts with educational resources are only discovered in a special operation. The Controllership itself has no idea when the inspectors will return to these cities. There are still almost four thousand municipalities to be inspected and, probably, new irregularities will only appear in those that have been sifted by the agency for specific reasons. "The fact is that, under the point of view of the structural conception of the Brazilian State, it would be necessary to rethink the federation so that effective measures to combat corruption could be applied," says the secretary general of the Brazilian Association of Municipalities, José Carlos Rassier.

The CGU is not changing the structure of the state and, in fact, the extensive work it has been doing has few practical results. Up to now, around 400 lawsuits have been filed by the Federal Public Ministry based on the agency's reports and something like 450 lawsuits had the same fate as decided by the Federal Attorney General's Office. But that does not mean much, as ISTOÉ showed in January this year when reporting some corruption cases pointed out by the CGU. Controllership can only take administrative decisions against Executive officials. Mayors, city councilors and state and municipal civil servants can ultimately only be punished by the courts. "And there is a big problem: the Brazilian judicial system is too slow," says Minister Jorge Hage. "It is absurd, but there is not much we can do."

5 tons of rubber band

São Francisco do Conde (BA) is perhaps the largest consumer per capita of rubber bands to roll money in the country. In 2002, the city's Department of Education bought five tons of rubber band for money, something like 4,3 million pieces of eraser. The CGU, however, was unable to find them in schools in the municipality, which would also receive, according to purchases with funds from Fundef, 36 atomic brushes

Hage does not accept claims that Controllership plays a much more symbolic than effective role. For him, one of the objectives of the municipalities' inspection program is also to create a kind of culture of fear among public administrators. "This is happening. There is a fear in small towns and that is also one of our goals ”, he says. But he agrees that it will not be two-week visits by some federal inspectors that will transform the reality of the country. ”The universe of more than five thousand municipalities is too big. It is necessary for civil society to take part in this fight, without it the inspection will always be deficient ”, says Hage.

But inspecting small municipalities, which do not disclose their information and exercise political and economic power in the lives of most of their residents, is not exactly an easy task. In addition to the difficulties in obtaining the information, technical knowledge is also needed to decipher the hermetic accountability reports. Some experiences have been successful, but they are isolated cases.

The most successful of these occurred in the municipality of Rio Bonito, in the interior of São Paulo. A group of friends born in the city and led by the then president of Klabin, Josmar Verillo, formed an NGO to present projects to the city and work to raise funds to carry them out.

In a short time they realized that, despite the good collection, nothing happened. “We saw that our efforts were useless because everything that entered the city hall was diverted in some way,” says Verillo, today president of the Santa Cândida plant. "We decided to change our focus of action and started to do a rigorous inspection work on municipal accounts." Two years later, in 2002, the NGO called Amarribo managed to remove Mayor Sérgio Antônio Buzar, who was later convicted by the courts and was only detained in Rondônia after a long period on the run.

Spent without evidence

The Oiapoque City Hall (AP) did not even bother to falsify invoices. Between 2005 and 2007, the city received R $ 421 thousand from the Ministry of Cities to build a new bus terminal. However, the municipal administration did not prove to CGU how it used R $ 271 thousand of the resources. There were no notes to justify the expenses. The case was referred to the Federal Public Ministry of Amapá

The strategy worked, but did not guarantee permanent results. The new mayor, elected in 2006, Rubens Gaiozo Jr., started to adopt the same practices as his predecessor. Once again, the NGO returned to inspection, discovered new cases of corruption and managed to remove it in 2007. “From the experience we have acquired in these processes, I venture to affirm that 98% of Brazilian municipalities have deviations from public resources”, says Verillo. “If it's not the mayor, it's the secretaries or someone on the team. And this is because it is very easy to steal public money in Brazil. There is no structure capable of monitoring what happens in the almost 5,6 municipalities in the country. ”

NGO from São Paulo managed to remove two corrupt mayors in five years

Verillo advocates for the same thesis of Minister Jorge Hage: without support from civil society, it is practically impossible to fight this corruption in contagotes that plagues the whole country. “There is no way: either you have a group of citizens closely monitoring the city hall or there will be corruption” says the executive. His opinion is almost a consensus among the entities that fight corruption in the country. “Only the attention and the collection of citizens can improve the control of public spending. It is utopian to believe that this role falls exclusively to the State ”, says Augusto Miranda, vice president of the Institute of Inspection and Citizenship (IFC).

Created in 2005 in Brasilia, IFC works to encourage the creation and support of NGOs aimed at inspecting the municipal public power. Today there are 100 entities supported by the institute, which, in addition to training its members, offers tools for more effective control of the accounts of Brazilian municipalities. "But the truth is that will and dedication are not enough, political and economic strength is also needed to oppose the public power, which in poor regions is the maintainer of almost the entire population", says Miranda.

Not all Brazilian cities have an executive with international experience, who has served as president of a multinational, as is the case with Jos Mar Verillo. Few municipalities can count on qualified professionals who can understand complex public accounting.

Basically, expecting a country in which 30 million people crossed the line that separated them from extreme poverty a few years ago to have a surveillance network formed by civil society is almost a utopia. And the corruption that plagues the small municipalities is the driving force of a vicious circle that feeds back on the mafias, the mayors, the companies, in short, the criminals of all sorts who take advantage of the State's inability to inspect their resources.