The former minister of Labor and Social Security in the Jair Bolsonaro government, Onyx Lorenzoni, told the Joint Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI) of the National Social Security Institute (INSS) that the suspicions of irregularities in associative discounts are old and span different administrations.
“The problem with associative discounts was recurrent. There have been reports of problems with agreements or procedures from the most different governments since 2010, recorded by the Brazilian press”, commented Lorenzoni when testifying to the commission, as a guest, this Thursday (6).
Lorenzoni commanded the portfolio to which the INSS is linked for eight months, from the end of July 2021 to March 2022. Today, when testifying, he admitted that he was already aware of the problem when he took over the portfolio. Both because, according to him, the press had been reporting “problems” related to unauthorized charges for social security benefits since at least 2010, and because the father of one of his advisors had already been the victim of unauthorized deductions and spent months trying to recover the amounts owed.
“During the transition [entre as gestões do ex-presidente Michel Temer e Bolsonaro]this advisor told me we had the opportunity to change that. So we went to the working group [que discutia as prioridades do novo governo para a] Pensions, we tell the story [do pai do assessor]we remember an episode from 2018 and asked that models for improvement and combating possible fraud be studied”, said Lorenzoni.
According to the minister, this was the reason why one of the Bolsonaro government’s first initiatives was to send to the National Congress, at the beginning of 2019, Provisional Measure (MP) 871, which gave rise to Law 13,846approved with the justification of curbing fraud in benefits, “including undue discounts”, and containing social security expenses.
According to Lorenzoni, the original proposal provided that the entities responsible for requesting the INSS to discount their members’ monthly fees would prove the validity of the authorizations annually, but during the processing of the MP, the National Congress “used its prerogative” and overturned the proposal, approving the revalidation in three years, starting on December 31, 2021. Then-president Jair Bolsonaro sanctioned Law 13,846 in June 2019, without vetoing this point. Later, when approving other MPs, the parliamentarians themselves ended the mandatory revalidation, which was only resumed in 2020, still during the Bolsonaro government.
In his testimony, Lorenzoni stated that, as Minister of Labor and Social Security, he was not aware of mass memberships or even the release of discounts on associative monthly fees in batches. “The INSS is an autonomous agency. This was not the direct responsibility of the minister”, he commented, highlighting that, in 2019, the INSS took administrative actions against the entities reported, canceling the authorizations for four investigated associations to offer the possibility for members to pay their monthly fees through discounts on social security benefits. The following year, five other entities were punished.
Questioned by the CPMI rapporteur, deputy Alfredo Gaspar (União-AL), Lorenzoni assured that he never received information that INSS directors had committed misconduct or received undue advantages during the period in which he was in charge of the ministry. He admitted, however, that, in 2022, he received R$60,000 from businessman Felipe Macedo Gomes, then president of one of the entities investigated within the scope of Operação Sem Desconto, Amar Brasil Clube de Benefícios, but assured that, until then, he did not know Gomes and that the money was donated to his electoral campaign for the government of Rio Grande do Sul, in 2022.
Gaspar also asked about the fact that the former minister’s son, lawyer Pietro Lorenzoni, had provided services to another of the entities investigated for alleged involvement in fraud against retirees and pensioners, the Brazilian Union of Pension Retirees (Unibap). Lorenzoni denied influence peddling, stating that the firm of which his son is one of the partners was hired due to the team’s competence, and that he was unaware of his son’s business.
When taking a lunch break, the commission’s rapporteur said that the information provided by Lorenzoni will be compared with that of other deponents and with all the documentation already available. “[Ainda] I can’t make a value judgment on whether or not he told the truth. Let’s compare this with the documents. He spent eight months at the head of the ministry and these frauds already existed. [Por isso] we will analyze the conduct of all ministers to find out what measures were taken”, commented Gaspar, highlighting that, although he did not dodge the questions, he did not clarify the issue of the money he received from the former president of Amar Brasil, nor the fact that his son advocated for one of the entities investigated.
“It could be a more in-depth statement, but he brought data and said that during his management, associative discounts decreased. I’m still going to compare this with the documents we have. What I can say is that, during his management, six Technical Cooperation Agreements (ACTs) were signed with entities that turned out to be fraudulent. But as he said, the INSS is an autarchy and he doesn’t know the entities and did not participate in the signings. We have to analyze the extent to which he and other ministers engaged in omissive conduct towards of everything that is in place.”
Summons
Before listening to Lorenzoni, the members of the CPMI of the INSS approved the proposals that the collegiate ask Minister André Mendonça, rapporteur of the action on the illegal discounts of associative monthly fees in the Federal Supreme Court (STF), the preventive arrests of five more investigated: Felipe Macedo Gomes, former president of Amar Brasil Clube de Benefícios; Vinícius Ramos da Cruz, president of the Land and Work Institute (ITT); Silas Vaz, secretary of the National Confederation of Family Farmers and Rural Family Entrepreneurs (Conafer) and Domingos Sávio de Castro and Rubens Oliveira Costa, linked to businessman Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes, the so-called Careca of the INSS, appointed as the main operator of the scheme.
CPMI also approved the confrontation between Antunes and lawyer Eli Cohen, one of the first to point out fraud in associative discounts for retirees and pensioners under the General Social Security Regime. The date for the two to be heard, face to face, is yet to be defined.
