In a public hearing at the Senate Education Commission, this Thursday (5), businessman Jorge Guilherme da Silva Souza, owner of JG Consultoria e Assessoria, said that his company did not act as an intermediary in the release of funds from the National Development Fund. of Education (FNDE) to municipalities.
The collegiate investigates suspicions raised in March about the role of pastors Gilmar Santos and Arilton Moura in the irregular release of funds from the Ministry of Education.
Jorge Guilherme Souza was invited to provide clarification because he was quoted in another testimony collected by the collegiate, that of the mayor of Rosário (MA) Calvet Filho. On the occasion, the mayor said that, through the JG, he got an informal agenda with the then minister of the portfolio, Milton Ribeiro, to advance demands.
“Perhaps he has other people on his team, on the parliamentary team by which he is assisted, here in Brasília, who promote these meetings. And when he said that the Brasilia team has an advisory body that promotes these agendas, he certainly spoke in a generic way, but not about the JG Group,” he said.
The businessman added that he has no “proximity” with any government. “Perhaps your Excellencies even have access to the visits that people happen to make to the ministries, and we have never made any,” he said.
Souza explained to the senators that the JG’s job “is to make the municipality able to receive the resources”. “Often, our customers even confuse this. And maybe that, for us, for me, as a businessman, can even make it easier when a mayor understands it this way, because he sometimes closes some kind of contract imagining it. But when you see our technical work, I often don’t know if that benefits us, because we only offer the work of training the teams”, he added.
absences
In addition to Jorge Guilherme da Silva Souza, the Education Commission had also invited two other people who did not attend. One of them is the mayor of Centro Novo (MA), Junior Garimpeiro, mentioned in the complaints about the influence of pastors in the MEC and FNDE.
The other absent guest was Crezus Ralph Lavra Santos, appointed as a participant in the intermediation of the transfer of resources between pastors and the mayor.
Unlike a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI), which has the power to summon any authority or citizen to testify, a permanent commission can only summon ministers and authorities directly linked to the Presidency of the Republic.
Historic
Even with limited powers, in the Senate, the Education Commission investigates suspicions raised in March about the role of pastors Gilmar Santos and Arilton Moura in releasing education resources.
The denunciations, which appeared in the press, led to the fall of Ribeiro, who is also a pastor, days later. At the time, in his defense, the former minister stated that he did not commit illegal acts. “I am fully convinced that I have never practiced any management act that was not guided by legality, probity and commitment to the treasury. Suspicions that irregular acts have been committed must be investigated in depth,” said Ribeiro.
