Former Social Security Minister of the Bolsonaro government and former president of the National Institute of Social Security (INSS), Ahmed Mohamad Oliveira, told the Mixed Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI) that the Institute is unable to supervise technical cooperation agreements (ACTs) that signs with other public administration organizations and civil society entities.
“The INSS has absolutely no condition to oversee ACTs”, OLIVEIRA said on Thursday (11), when questioned by the rapporteur of the committee, the federal deputy Alfredo Gaspar (Union-AL), about the criteria and procedures that the deponent adopted by valuing, as director of benefits of the institute, the signing of agreements with civil entities.
“As director, I practically welcomed what came from the entire line…”, said Oliveira by classifying as merely “mechanical” the process of analysis of partnerships between the INSS and entities as retirees and unions authorized to offer their affiliates the monthly discount directly from the social security benefit.
“This is a question, a process, let’s say mechanical. [entidades] required [a assinatura de acordos]this went through the sieve of all sectors [do INSS] To be appropriate, according to the legislation, and came in a virtual process for us to afford our signatures. It was a very cold and distant thing from us, ”added the deponent, justifying the fact that, Even considering that the institute is unable to supervise the execution of the agreements, agreed to be signed.
Career server of the Institute, Oliveira chaired the INSS from November 2021 to March 2022, when he took command of the Ministry of Social Security, where he remained until the end of the Bolsonaro government, on December 31, 2022. At the time, he was attended by José Carlos Oliveira, who was recently changed for religious reasons. He deposed CPMI as a guest and the expectation of the commission composed of 16 senators and 16 federal deputies is to investigate any omissions about complaints and complaints that began to gain body in the period.
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Fraud
Technical cooperation agreements that allow civil society organizations to cover, from retirees and pensioners, associative tuition directly from the INSS social security benefits to millions of retirees and pensioners from all over Brazil were suspended, for the same day as the Federal Police (PF) and the Union Comptroller (CGU) triggered the Operation without Discount, in April this year.
The operation has made public a criminal scheme of discounts from associative tuition involving several of the authorized entities to offer their members the possibility of the discount on leaf. Until last week, more than 5.58 million people had questioned the charges and more than 2.2 million INSS policyholders had already received reimbursement for illegally discounted amounts.
Investigations revealed that most of the victims of fraud did not even know the entities that charged the tuition by presenting counterfeit documents. Data from the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) and the INSS itself They indicate that, from 2016, the discounted amount of pensioners and retirees through associative discounts – authorized or not – grew year after year.
In 2016, it was R $ 413 million; in 2017, R $ 460 million; in 2018, R $ 617 million; In 2019, R $ 604 million. By 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the value fell to $ 510 million. In 2021 were discounted R $ 536 million. In 2022, R $ 706 million. In 2023, R $ 1.2 billion. And last year, $ 2.8 billion.
Ignorance
In his testimony to CPMI, Oliveira assured that he only became aware of the frauds in associative discounts with the outbreak of the operation without discountreinforcing that the requirements passed through other technical sectors, without a personal and individualized analysis of the proposals.
“At that moment (2021), we had more than 60 CGU notes, but none concerned this mode of the associative discount. We had 500 TCU judgments [Tribunal de Contas da União]. None of them dealt with this modality. That’s why we never had a look at this mode. We were focused on the recognition of rights and in line of 2.8 million stopped lawsuits, waiting to be analyzed – some of them waiting for an answer for over 100 days, ”said Oliveira, saying that, as a benefit director, only“ welcomed what came from the entire line ”.
“It is important to highlight that the INSS does not benefit from any discount,” said Oliveira, reinforcing the thesis of his successor in the Ministry of Social Security, former Minister Carlos Lupi, who before leaving office, after the holding of the Operation without discountHe said that he always spoke out against the discount of so -called associative tuition fees because he understands that it generates costs and more work for the institute, without it receiving for it.
“Our function is just to operationalize what the law determines,” continued Oliveira. “If there were abuses and irregularities, they were practiced by external entities and should be investigated and punished with proper rigor. And of course, if there was the involvement of a server [público]that this is also punished. ”
During the interval of the testimony, CPMI President Senator Carlos Viana (Somos-MG) commented with journalists that all the information provided by the deponents will be confronted with each other and with official documents obtained by the Commission.
“There are times when the feeling I have is the same as people who approach me on the streets: no one knows anything, no one saw anything and just learned after the PF manifested itself. That is, there are times when the stolen retirees seems to be guilty, but we will not let this sensation perduce,” explained.
