Auditors from the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) will assess the expenses that the Presidency of the Republic made on the corporate card, from August to October 2022. The opening of the inspection process was approved this Wednesday (15) and meets a request of the National Congress.
The purpose of the request presented by then federal deputy Elias Vaz (PSB-GO) is to verify the legality and legitimacy of confidential expenses that direct members of the presidential team made during the period, using the corporate card. Defeated in the last elections, when he ran for a new term as deputy, Vaz was appointed Secretary of Legislative Affairs of the current Ministry of Justice and Public Security.
In addition to the bodies of the Presidency of the Republic, such as the General Secretariat, the President’s Personal Office and the Institutional Security Office, the inspection will also focus on the performance of Banco do Brasil, the institution to which the corporate card is linked.
In the initial request, approved by the Financial Inspection and Control Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, Vaz points out that, in the three months leading up to the 2022 elections, there was a “significant increase in expenses” of federal public resources destined to defray the expenses of the team direct from former President Jair Bolsonaro.
In the inspection request he submitted to the TCU, Vaz claimed that the presidency’s expenditures on confidential expenses in the three months leading up to the election exceeded R$ 9.18 million – which represents a monthly average of just over R$ 3 million. Value that, according to the parliamentarian, corresponds to an increase of 108% compared to approximately R$ 1.57 million in average monthly spending between January and the beginning of November last year.
Campaign
By complying with the request of the then deputy, the TCU stressed the importance of, in due course, and considering the inflation of the period, comparing the expenses incurred with the corporate card since 2018, in order to answer whether there was, in fact, an unjustifiable increase in expenses on the eve of the election.
In addition, to answer whether the itemized expenses can be considered improper campaign expenses, TCU technicians will need to compare the official commitments that Bolsonaro fulfilled in the Presidency of the Republic with the campaign events in which he participated as a candidate, from August to October.
“These data must be compared with other documents that show expenses, such as payment statements from the Federal Government Payment Card; documents relating to the settlement of expenses; invoices and receipts; accountability reports, with a methodology to be defined after receiving this information, depending on the quality and quantity of data to be treated”, details the report prepared by the team of Minister Antonio Anastasia, rapporteur of the judgment to which the Brazil Agency had access today (16).
“It should be noted that Brazilian legislation allows the president [da República] can participate in electoral campaign events concurrently with the exercise of the office”, recalls the document. “There is no prohibition on the participation of the candidate for presidential reelection in electoral campaign events, provided that the official transportation expenses of the president and his entourage are reimbursed by the candidate’s party or coalition.”
