Bolsonaro’s Ministers: Three Indicted, Two Investigated, One Convicted

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The cases arose after lawsuits and investigations involving slush funds, administrative misconduct, misappropriation of public funds and irregularities in pension fund deals.

Elected using a campaign speech that pledged a hard line against irregularities by politicians, Bolsonaro has maintained in office Ministers involved in investigations.

Regarding the murkiest of cases, the suspicion of strawmen candidates involving the Minister of Tourism, Bolsonaro said that the “intention is not to affect the minister”.

“It’s me, Bolsonaro, whom they want to label as corrupt,” he said, rebutting the denunciations.

So far, Bolsonaro has not evinced any intention to remove any of the ministers under investigation. Learn below about each of them – who all plead not guilty in their cases, involving the current administration or previous actions:

Minister of Tourism: indicted

The Minister of Tourism, Marcelo Álvaro Antônio, was denounced by the Minas Gerais Prosecutor’s Office (MP- MG) under accusations of involvement in the PSL’s strawmen scheme.

The investigation found that the minister headed a scheme to divert public funds by using female “paper candidates” in the last election.

Formally, the minister was accused by the Minas Gerais prosecutor’s office for crimes of electoral fraud, misappropriation of electoral resources and criminal association, which have a maximum sentence of five, six and three years imprisonment, respectively.

Marcelo Álvaro Antônio rejected the charges and said he will prove his innocence.

Minister of Citizenship: indicted

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) brought a civil action against the Minister of Citizenship, Osmar Terra, for administrative impropriety, due to the suspension of an ANCINE tender for audiovisual productions for public television broadcasters.

The measure was regarded as the first formal act of censorship by Jair Bolsonaro’s government, in the cultural sphere.

According to the MPF, the suspension was damaging to public coffers since the federal government had already spent nearly R$1.8 million (US$450 thousand) in assessing the 613 proposals that were disputing the tender opened in March 2018 and which was in its final stage.

The ordinance was published by Terra suspended ANCINE’s tender for 180 days, extendable for the same period.

The suspension occurred six days after President Jair Bolsonaro disclosed the names of four LGBT-themed productions that were disputing the tender in the “gender diversity” and “sexuality” categories, during a live broadcast in his profile on social media.

The Ministry of Citizenship states that the government decided to suspend the tender “with the intention of analyzing the criteria for its drafting”. According to the portfolio, the call for tenders provided for the option of suspension or annulment. The ministry further states that “the suspended tender had not been discussed by this government”.

However, according to the MPF, the real reason for the suspension is “discrimination against projects with topics related to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, and transvestites”.

The MPF states in the lawsuit that the suspension was intended to prevent the projects mentioned by the president from winning the tender. As there was no legal way to remove the four projects from the tender in its final stage, the “solution” found by the federal government was to sacrifice the whole process, claims the MPF in the lawsuit.

Minister of Health: indicted

The Minister of Health, Luiz Mandetta, is the target of at least four lawsuits pending in court. Three of them deal with the same case: the introduction of a health information integration system, when Mandetta was city secretary in Campo Grande, the state capital of Mato Grosso do Sul.

The Prosecutor’s Office is charging Mandetta with administrative impropriety for fraud in the establishment of the Gisa system, which would ease the scheduling of appointments and exams and the exchange of information between the Basic Health Units.

The project cost the Ministry of Health R$8.1 million (2008 figure), but according to the Prosecutor’s Office, it was marked by favoritism, fraud and contractual breach. The service would never be provided.

Two lawsuits, in this case, were brought by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office and have been under judicial seal in the Fourth Federal Court of Campo Grande since 2015. Another lawsuit was filed by the Municipal Prosecutor’s Office of Campo Grande and was appended to the same lawsuit.

The fourth lawsuit deals with alleged fraud in agreements with the Civil Police Union, also in the period when Mandetta was the health secretary of Campo Grande. According to the denunciation made by the Mato Grosso do Sul State Prosecutor’s Office, there was an irregular transfer of R$128,000 to the union without a bidding process.

The justification for the transfer was the lack of a permanent employee for the post of necropsy technician in the coroner’s service.

In a note, the Ministry of Health reported that “of all the denunciations that Luiz Henrique Mandetta has so far received, none have been accepted by the courts”. “Therefore, he is not a defendant in a lawsuit,” the ministry said.

Presidential Chief of Staff: under investigation

Onyx Lorenzoni, the Presidential Chief of Staff, is the target of an investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office into slush fund transfers. The investigation stemmed from the whistleblowing testimony involving JBS (meat processing company).

The whistleblowers pointed out two transfers to Onyx, one of R$100,000 in 2014 and another of R$100,000 in 2012.

A slush fund is a practice of collecting funds for campaigns without declaring the amounts in the rendering of accounts to the Electoral Courts.

Onyx has already admitted in an interview to have received R$100,000 from JBS in 2014 and apologized, saying that he should “pay for his mistake”.

But on the second slush fund allegation, the minister denies irregularities and rejects the claim of whistleblowers.

“I fear nothing, it is not the first time that the system has tried to involve me in corruption. I’m a fighter against corruption and that’s the story of my life,” he said, right after the case was disclosed by the press.

Minister of Economy: under investigation

Minister Paulo Guedes is being investigated by the Greenfield operation task force of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The prosecutors are investigating whether there have been irregularities in deals made by a company owned by Guedes with pension funds sponsored by state-owned companies.

The case is also being investigated by the TCU (Federal Court of Auditors).

Guedes’ defense has asserted the ” lawfulness and correctness of all fund operations” and says that it has already sent “extensive documentation” to the MPF attesting that the investments were lawfully made and yielded profits to investors.

Minister of Environment: convicted

Environment Minister Ricardo Salles has been convicted of administrative misconduct by the São Paulo courts.

He was indicted by the São Paulo Prosecutor’s Office for fraud in the drafting of the management plan for the APA (Environmental Protection Area) of the Tietê River floodplain, for the benefit of mining companies affiliated to FIESP (Federation of Industry of the State of São Paulo).

This decision was handed down in the lower court, and the minister’s defense counsel has appealed the conviction.

Salles was accused of having altered maps and the draft decree of the APA management plan of Várzea do Tietê, when he was the State Environment Secretary of São Paulo, in the government of Geraldo Alckmin.

In the ruling, Judge Fausto José Martins Seabra, of the 3rd Financial Court of São Paulo, found that Salles violated the Law of Administrative Misconduct, which bans “the practice of acts for proscribed purposes in law or regulation or otherwise, in the rule of jurisdiction”.

The minister stated that his decision in the Tietê APA proceeding was the correct one and that “on the substance” he would do it again. According to Salles, President Jair Bolsonaro said he agreed with his performance in this case.

When he was convicted, the minister stated that the sentence “makes it clear that there was no environmental crime,” that he “had no personal gain in this case,” and added that the “conviction is illegal”.

Source: UOL