The president of the Chamber, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB) came out in defense of civil servant Mariângela Fialek, who was the target of search and seizure warrants by the Federal Police, on Friday (12). Known as “Tuca”, she worked for the former president of the House, Arthur Lira. 
“Servant Mariângela Fialek is a competent, responsible technician and committed to the good management of public affairs”, guaranteed Motta in a statement released last night.
The current president of the Chamber, still defending her, added that the civil servant was fundamental in “improving the systems for tracking the proposition, indication and execution of parliamentary amendments”.
“Secret budget”
Investigations indicate that Lira’s former advisor was responsible for sending orders to committees and determining the release of parliamentary amendments from the so-called “secret budget”. This became known as the allocation of public funds without identifying the politician who made the nomination or the final beneficiaries.
The steps to investigate the civil servant were authorized by Minister Flávio Dino, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF). However, Motta, in the note, wrote that he did not find in the minister’s decision “any act of misuse of public funds. None”.
However, he noted that any deviations must be duly investigated. Motta argued that it would be important not to confuse the act of “merely indicating parliamentary amendments”, which would not be mandatory, with the final execution of these funds by the final recipients.
“The correct execution of public resources and government transfers, not only parliamentary amendments, but also those coming from the Executive Branch, by their final recipients, must be strictly monitored by the control bodies”, considered Motta.
Investigation
The investigations into the employee’s procedures had as their starting point the testimony of six parliamentarians and a Chamber employee. The reports were from deputies Glauber Braga (Psol-RJ), José Rocha (União-BA), Adriana Ventura (Novo-SP), Fernando Marangoni (União-SP), Dr. Francisco (PT-PI) and senator Cleitinho (Republicanos-MG). According to the testimonies, Tuca sent letters from the Presidency of the Chamber to committees ordering the release of amendments, especially for Alagoas, the parliamentarian’s state.
Lira’s former advisor, who now holds a position in the PP presidency’s office in the Chamber, had already had her telematic confidentiality broken. However, the PF pointed out the need to carry out searches after noting the absence of messages saved on devices or data clouds, although it found evidence of crimes being committed.
Dino authorized the searches in view of the “concrete possibility that the represented party had adopted conduct aimed at preventing backups of its most sensitive data in a cloud environment, maintaining collections on physical media (papers, machines, etc.)”.
The minister stressed that the evidence points to “continuous, systematic and structured action” in organizing the secret budget.
Flávio Dino is also the rapporteur of an action in which the Supreme Court banned secret budget practices, forcing the Chamber to adopt minimum criteria for transparency and traceability of public money to the final recipient.
“Forced Redirect”
The statements reinforce the suspicion that there was a “forced redirection” of amendment resources by Lira, highlighted minister Flávio Dino.
In a partial report, the PF highlighted how since 2020 Tuca has held several strategic positions in public companies and in the Legislature, always recommended by Lira, which allowed her to manipulate the direction of amendments.
After finding a handwritten note that coincides with the direction of amendments, the researchers highlighted “the unusual detachment from formality” in the formulation of the Union Budget.
“A handwritten note, made in a rudimentary way, was responsible for the reallocation of resources from one Municipality to another. Unfortunately, it is impossible not to compare the way of controlling and organizing the secret budget coordinated by TUCA to a ‘bakery account'”, the investigators wrote.
