By Sarah de Sainte Croix, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Yesterday morning President Dilma Rousseff met with with the Labor Minister, Carlos Lupi, to demand an explanation of why he apparently lied about the details of a trip he made to Maranhão on government business.
On Saturday, Lupi was accused by Veja magazine of flying to Maranhão in a plane chartered by Adair Meira, who is under investigation by the CGU (the Comptroller General’s Office)as the man at the centre of the network of NGOs caught up in a corruption scandal at the Ministry of Labor.
In a statement released by the Ministry over the weekend Lupi denied all knowledge of Meira and the flight in question.
However, yesterday photos and a video emerged which apparently show Lupi getting out of one of Meira’s aircraft in the city of Grajaú in Maranhão, in December 2009.
Following the revelations, Duarte Nogueira, leader of the PSDB (the Social Democratic Party) in the Chamber of Deputies, filed a complaint against Lupi at the Public Ethics Commission accusing him of making a false statement before the Brazilian congress and contravening the Federal Code of Conduct.
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