Brazilian Federal University Major Scandal That Lead to a Dean’s Suicide
This was an special article for Zero Journal which received the prizes Expocom Sul and Expocom Nacional for best report published in print vehicle. These are the top prizes for journalism students in Brazil.
Editor’s Eduarda Hillebrandt opening:
The effects of Ouvidos Moucos (Deaf Ears, in english) an operation from Federal Police that investigates deviations in the Open University of Brazil program through the Foundations of Support, still reverberate in Federal University of Santa Catarina (FUSC) — located in the Florianópolis, capital of the brazilian south state of Santa Catarina. The university dean Luiz Carlos Cancellier, who had been removed from the campus by judicial determination, returned to the Rectory in an enclosed coffin. The University Council had to deal with the legal divergences of the succession, an when the Vice-dean Alacoque Lorenzini took office, part of the Cabinet suffered a political rupture.
In the next pages, Zero reports the last days of Cancellier and the reflexes of his suicide in the conducting investigations in Brazil. Despite the critics to the Federal Police, the second phase of the operation can erupt at any moment. Pages 10 and 11 (this text was originally published in a physic newspaper) show the points that were the target of the operation and the questions about other FUSC projects in partnership with Foundations. In particular, the favoring of companies in bids. Next, students of distance education have their classes frozen till further notices — and the Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Staff (in Brazil, its known as Capes) follows without clarifying why they did cut the program’s funding for the Federal University of Santa Catarina’s distance courses.
The Fall of Cancelier
The last days towards a suicide
By: João Paulo Mallmann e Matheus de Moura
The September 14th had barely dawned when Federal Police knocked on the door of Luiz Carlos Cancellier de Olivo, dean of FUSC. He was temporarily arrested for supposedly attempting to obstruct justice, based on the testimonies of prosecutor Rodolfo Hickel and Professor Taisa Dias, both of the servants at the university. The act marked the outbreak of Deaf Ears, an operation that investigates deviations of resources from the Open University of Brazil program at the university.
Of the 12 investigated, seven were temporarily arrested and five were taken to testify. Érika Marena, delegate in charge of the operation, not only took to the streets of the capital of Santa Catarina more than 100 federal agents, but also the modus operandi of Operation Car Wash — which is to first arrested and tarnish reputations, and only then ask the questions. In 2014, she was part of the team that founded the investigation of misappropriation of money at Petrobras, her participance was important to the point of her being the responsible for baptizing this operation, in which she worked until 2016, when she was relocated to the Federal Police post in Florianópolis.
Cancellier and the other prisoners were released the following day by order of Marjôrie Cristina Freiberger, substitute judge in the 6th Federal Court of Florianópolis. However, the order to prohibit the entrance of the investigated ones in the university was not revoked. Cancellier has been exiled from the place where he studied and worked in the last 12 years.
Last Days
He, who had stopped smoking some time before, restarted his habit right after leaving prison. He began psychological treatment with antidepressants in an attempt to overcome the damage he attributed to prison procedures, including the vexatious intimate searches, and the public trial to which he had been subjected.
Newspapers and internet portals erroneously reported that the dean was arrested on suspicion of diverting R$80 million from the distance education program. The first portal to publish such absurd was the G1, which belongs to the Globo group. It not only erred in pointing out the accusations to what the dean responded, once he had been arrested for obstruction of justice, not misappropriation of money, but the portal also erred in the amount disclosed, since the R$80 million corresponded to the total amount dedicated to the distance education program between 2006 and 2017. The real rhombus that generated the investigation would be R$106,104.02. On the day of the arrest, students organized a happy hour, a kind of university party that used to happen in the college campus, but was banned by Cancellier for security reasons. To all this allegations, the dean made public statements to newspapers declaring innocence.
To make matters worse, Cancelier started to feel isolated, as he had just passed by a divorce and, after being released from prison, almost no one went to visit him at home. Colleagues at the university feared that any visits would raise suspicion of the Federal Police. In the last week of September, the dean had lunch with the former senator and friend Nelson Wedekin, of whom he had been an advisor in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia. He said the dean seemed to be reacting lucidly to the situation. Acioli Olivo traveled to Florianópolis to show support for Cancelier, who was his younger brother.
On September 30th, a federal court decision authorized Cancellier to spend three hours at the university on October 5th. Thus, he could guide its post-graduates in Law. His freedom to come and go, however, would remain limited to the Center of Juridical Sciences — where he was a professor of constitutional law — , without being able to return to the Rectory building, which had been his workplace since May 2016.
The Political Career of Cancelier
Cancellier devoted part of his life to building a solid political career. During his tenure, he sought to maintain the image of conciliator he had built over the years. He was not directly involved in any major controversy. Not even the ban on happy hours, one of the only sources of income for academic centers, had generated great repercussions. He also avoided tensions in the case of the university servant Daniel Dambrowski’s unfair exoneration process, which Zero reported in its latest issue. Cancelier wanted to maximize the number of people who were pleased during his administration, gathering more and more political points.
After winning the second round of elections for Rector of FUSC in November 2015, Cancellier left the post of director of the Center of Juridical Sciences, which he held since 2012. Prior to that, in 2009, he was president of the José Boiteux Foundation (Funjab), one of the aforementioned in the Operation Deaf Ears. Since 2006, he was an adviser to the University Council, where he was speaking in favor of the Foundations, giving favorable opinions to the reprocessing of Fapeu, on the grounds that it had served the university for a long time, even tho it was working without complying with legal matters and regulatory. During this period, he created a political base that kept him strong in scholarly debates and later on this same political base would come to occupy posts in pro-rectories during his term.In the campaign for rector, he called attention to being in favor of the Brazilian Company of Hospital Services (EBSERH), fight for the presence of the Military Police on campus, and make it difficult to hold university parties. Actions contrasting with the past of militant of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), recalled by friends and colleagues after his death.
According to former work colleagues, Cancelier would have entered the game of university politics to build his image and run for municipal offices until, finally, he achieved his supposed dream of becoming mayor of Florianópolis. After the arrest, the candidacy seemed an improbable future. At the funeral, rumor had it that even Freemasonry — of which he and most of his pro — rectors were a part — would have turned its back on him. We sought lawyer Waltoir Menegotto, Cancellier’s godfather at the Masonic shop Acacia of the Continent, but the latter declined to give any information about Cau’s, as he was know by intimate friends, tensions with the movement, saying he was not allowed to address the matter. “We of Masonry do not give any information about internal things,” he said.
Even after his death, Cancelier maintains political influences, being honored in two bills. At the municipal level, councilor Tiago Silva (MDB) proposed Bill 17339/2017, which attempts to change to Luiz Carlos Cancelier de Olive Square the name of the Santos Dumont Square, a popular place among students which is located next to FUSC. And at the federal level, Senator Roberto Requião (PMDB-PR) suggested the name “Cancellier’s Law” for Bill 7596/17, which punishes abuses of authority practiced by the three powers, the Public Ministry and public servants in general, and which also aims to end the privileged forum. The project is being held since May in the Chamber of Deputies.
Funeral and repercussion
Cancelier killed himself, jumping from the 7th floor of the Beira-Mar Shopping, which is famous for being a suicide point. His body was veiled in a closed coffin in the hall of the Rectory building. There were friends, family members, political allies, and much of the academic community. In the construction of the funeral atmosphere, candles and wreaths were sent from various places. The university went into mourning.
The act of Cancellier was not just another suicide in the mall of the city’s most famous avenue. Friends, political allies of the dean and national entities raised flag against police abuse and how investigations turned spectacle. In the funeral solemn session of the University Council, the speeches of Nelson Wedekin and the judge and childhood friend Lédio Rosa de Andrade reverberated throughout the country, as they inflamed criticism of Operation Lava-Jet. On the banners on the main table of the meeting was the saying: “such painful punishment will not be useless”.
Big shots such as Mayor Gean Loureiro found their way to the funeral, which took place in the Jardim da Paz cemetery, located 7 km from FUSC. Also present was the discrete but not invisible Marcos Baptista Lopez Dalmau, secretary of distance education between 2016 and 2017, one of seven temporarily arrested at the outbreak of Deaf Ears. Approached by our staff, he said that he was afraid of PF and that he was advised by his lawyer and by the police not to give interviews. “I’m avoiding even passing near the FUSC,” he said.
After rector’s death, it starts witch-hunt
As soon as the last wreath was placed on Cancellier’s grave, the articulations on the future of the FUSC began. A former head of the Central Directory of Students next to the dean said that, “as soon as the dust downed,” a meeting of the University Council would articulate the removal of Rodolfo Hickel from the position of University’s Prosecutor. Hickel was one of those responsible for Cancellier’s charge of obstruction of justice, and is held by the dean’s allies as his great tormentor.
However, the maneuver did not take place in the University Council. The first meeting after his death, on October 10, had as its agenda the succession in the office of rector. The councilors unanimously approved the stay of Alacoque Lorenzini Erdmann, vice of the Cancellier plate, in the position. They discussed just how they would legally defend the decision, in view of Presidential Decree 1,916 / 1996, which determines, in the event of vacancy in the position of dean or vice-dean, that a triple list must be drawn up by the maximum council of the institution and sent to President of the Republic’s evaluation.
If the University Council did not overthrow Hickel, the same can not be said of Áureo Mafra de Moraes, chief of staff at the time, and a friend of Cancellier’s for 30 years. On October 20th, he published Decree 2356/2017, which reopened the administrative process against Hickel, dismissing him from his position for 60 days. According to Áureo, the work of the corregedor was directly affecting some actions in FUSC. “People are afraid to sign papers, make decisions, face meetings.” The administrative process had already been opened on June 5 at the request of Professor Gerson Rizzatti Junior, who reported abuses of authority committed by the prosecutor against professor Monica Salomón González. It is stated in the file that “the professor narrates, in addition, that on 06/07/2017 the Professor Monica went through an interrogation session for three hours, accused of unspecified crimes, reduced to term that was forced to sign, however, without right to check the facts described. “
Reluctantly, the chief of staff, Alacoque annulled the decree. Aureo left office saying that he could not continue in office without the confidence of the new dean. He believes that visits by Orlando Vieira de Castro Júnior, superintendent of the General Prosecution of the Union in SC and André Bertol, prosecutor of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) would have made the vice-president feel threatened, culminating in the annulment of the ordinance.
Despite tensions, Aureo remains convinced that he has made the right decisions, saying he is not afraid of being arrested. In his assessment the actions of the corregedor are harmful to society and create “a climate of terror”. He states that Hickel has “an arrogant way, like who is above good and evil.” The former chief of staff intends to prosecute Hickel because of an interview granted to Diário Catarinense, on October 25th, in which he says that, “Áureo is part of the list of servers that I asked to leave the university for organs that are involved in the investigation of Deaf Ear. He received distance education scholarships that still need to be analyzed. That may have been the reason for the retaliation. “
In fact, the name of the Aureo is quoted and highlighted twice in the Deaf Ears survey. In the first, it is in a list with seven professors and entities that “historically work at Open University of Brazil” and also received scholarships for the project “Development of governance model applied to networks of public policies to promote social equality”, managed by Fapeu and coordinated by Marcos Dalmau, arrested in the outbreak of the operation. The second quotation is on an almost identical list, repeating five of the eight teachers and entities. It only changes that this project, also managed by Fapeu, was called “Improvement in Health Promotion” and was coordinated by the also temporarily arrested Eduardo Lobo. Next to Áureo is mentioned in the project of Dalmau the professor Gerson Rizzatti Junior, who requested opening of Administrative Process against the Hickel.
Aureus says there is nothing wrong with receiving scholarships. For him everyone has already received a scholarship at some point and they would not be doing something illegal.
In a new meeting of the University Council, Cancellier’s allies harshly criticized the dean’s decision and Hickel’s way of working. On October 31, Alacoque asked to leave her university activities for 60 days for health reasons. With the departure of the pro-rectors, who would be the successors in office, Ubaldo Cesar Balthazar, director of the Center of Juridical Sciences and cancellier ally, became acting dean for being dean among the councilors. The Council unanimously approved the request for appointment of Ubaldo as dean pro tempore, to be sent to the Ministry of Education.
As soon as he took office, he re-established Cancellier’s team of pro-rectors and said he hoped to have Alacoque as soon as she returned from her leave. The future is still undefined: a resolution of the Ministry of Education says that a triple list chosen by CUn should be sent to Brasilia to choose the successor, but Ubaldo hopes to get a term of up to six months to choose the new rector. Currently, the FUSC Prosecutor, Rodolfo Hickel do Prado, is away from duty for 60 days, due to health reasons.
Federal Police Investigates Overbillings
By João Bosco Cyrino
It took only two years for an anonymous report to the Federal Public Ministry in Santa Catarina about irregularities in the Distance Education in Physics evolved to an investigation by the Federal Police, also investigating the Distance Learning Administration. The trigger that led to the action of the Federal Police was the breakdown of R$106,104.02 found by the Comptroller General of the Federal Government in the rendering of accounts for the period from 2009 to 2014 of the Physical Distance Education course.
Overpriced contracts
In the Distance Education of the Physics course, there are indications of the use of façade companies to inflate vehicle rental and accommodation contracts. Of 100 tax notes analyzed — in amounts totaling R$ 124,688.00 — S.A Tour was hired 91% of the time in a bidding process in exchange for comparative prices. The companies of the Açores Turismo Ltda, Arroba Turismo Ltda, AJC Viagens e Turismo and S.A Tour Viagens e Turismo Ltda.
There are also indications of price combinations between travel agencies. In an email sent on April 29, 2011, the partner of the company S.A Tour, Murilo da Costa Silva, requested help from the partner of the companies named in the survey, Aurélio Justino Cordeiro. Murilo requested that Aurélio send to the Company proposals of prices of rent of vehicle of a service for which S.A Tour had already been contracted three days before without competition.
On receipt of this service, issued by the SA Tour, they were indicated charges a driver to return from Florianopolis to Blumenau, also in Santa Catarina. But the driver would be one of the passengers, a retired Physics Department Professor, and there was no need to pay the additional. In both this and other notes, additives such as the most powerful car engine, air conditioning and driver do not have values specified separately. Making it impossible to determine if and where there was something that would justify tripling the value of a service that would cost R$ 1,500.
There are also expenses considered unnecessary or undue. For example, the request dated January 25, 2010 from lodging purchases round trip tickets from Chapecó to Florianópolis for a student, husband and son attending the face-to-face class of the course — the last two without any link to the activity. That’s not counting claims for undue daily or no tax bills. Of 35 requests for reimbursement made by Professor Márcio Santos, only 28 presented invoices. Of these, five are regular.
Zero’s reporters searched the investigators, but got no response. In an interview with portal G1, on October 14, Murilo da Costa Silva’s lawyer denied any irregular activity at the FUSC, and the defense of Márcio Santos denied making any statement.
Administration Course
The Federal Police investigated the Distance Education of Administration course because it concentrates a good part of the funds of the program Open University of Brazil. The accusations are that coordinators, faculty and staff of the course and program allowed the illegal payment of scholarships, and misuse of funds. However, unlike the scheme of façade companies used in Physics, in Administration there is a charge of threats and persecutions.
In July 2015, after returning from a seminar in Lages, a city from Santa Catarina, the Professors Elder Semperbon and Martin Petroll were approached by the financial manager of the Laboratory of Production of Didactic Resources for Training of Managers (LabGestión), the trader linked to Fapia Roberto Moritz da Nova. He stated that LabGestão assisted the Open University of Brasil Nucleus in financial management and asked both to return half of the R$ 1,300 scholarship grants received by the seminars. The reason was that the money from Capes did not pay all teachers, and that there was a gentleman’s agreement among the teachers, unknown to both Martin and Elder. This waiver is illegal because it is exempt from income tax and is forbidden by Capes.
Roberto asked that the value be delivered or deposited in the account of the then coordinator of the Distance Education of Administration course, Rogério Nunes. The teachers asked that the transfer be made official in a document, which they never received.
They began to be collected via e-mail and personally also by Rogério Nunes and the LabGestão coordinator, Gilberto Moritz — Roberto Moritz’s uncle. Elder transferred R$ 650 to Rogério Nunes’ account, while Martin Petroll did not give in to pressure. In recorded conversation, Roberto Moritz tells Martin that “[…] No one is doing anything here, right, illegal in quotation marks.”
Coordinator of the Distance Education of Administration since July 2016, Taisa Dias would have faced similar pressures. When he took office, he noticed that Roberto Moritz used the login of Rogério Nunes — who had recently assumed the position of coordinator of the Open University of Brazil — to insert in the program’s system names that were not entitled to scholarships.
The friction continued until the coordinator decided not to use the support of LabGestión when he found that he used Open University of Brazil scholarships to develop non-Distance Education activities, such as book layouts and video production. She was forced to go back on the decision. He found that Rogério Nunes would reduce the scolarships of the Administration and claimed that Capes did not pass the monthly amounts.
According to the survey, Taisa Dias was put under more pressure after refusing to use contract funds with Fepese — of which she was the project’s coordinator — to pay back late loans from previous management. Using the money for another purpose would be a crime of administrative impropriety. Even so, she was coerced to use the money by the Secretary of the Sead, Marcos Dalmau, and the Coordinator of the Administration Course, Eduardo Lobo.
She gathered evidence of the irregularities she noticed and talked to the then dean of FUSC, Luiz Carlos Cancellier. According to Taisa, he said that it was a management problem, stating that he would solve it. He reminded her that the accused colleagues could hurt her since she was on probation. At the end, he suggested that she should “keep the briefcase” in which brought the evidence of the case.
The Chronic Vices of Supporting Foundations
Irregularities observed in the Open University of Brazil are repeated in foundations projects, which resist compliance with recommendations.
By Matheus de Moura
Every year, regulatory agencies, including the Federal Comptroller’s Office (CGU) and the Internal Audit of FUSC (Audin), find administrative problems related to contracts signed between the University and the support foundations. The list of possible irregularities is long, due to improper bidding, unforeseen expenses with dubious justifications, lack of selective processes for scholarship holders, and insufficient proof of expenses. All this is evaluated and discussed at the highest legislative body of the university, the University Council. Therefore, for former members of the Council and auditors, nothing new was presented by Operation Deaf Ears regarding the three foundations: Funjab, Fapeu and Fepese.
FUSC does not know how to dispense bids
In the Survey of the Deaf Ears Operation questioned the contracting without bidding of the foundations in the six Distance Education courses. In 2008, the Federal Comptroller’s Office pointed out the same thing happening with the vestibular contest tests. This is because signing an agreement without any justification of choice, dispensing bidding to mere will, is not uncommon. The Controllership itself states in that year’s report that these unwarranted hirings with waiver of bidding represented “recurrence of non-compliance with Federal Comptroller’s Office’s recommendations of previous years.”
In both cases the FUSC would have erred by failing to state what criteria made it choose one foundation instead of the other. Law 8666/93 states that the choice must be “so that the reasons for the choice of supplier and the agreed prices are duly justified”
The Controller’s notes, however, did not solve anything. This irregularity persists to this day, and we are not talking about the Distance Education courses. The Federal Comptroller’s Office report that supervises FUSC during the year 2016 questions the use of R$ 492,530 in resources destined to Fapeu and Fepese projects signed without bidding processes.
Four-time chairman of the board approving of FUSC accounts, the Board of Trustees, Milton Horn finds it unnecessary to justify the choice of one of four foundations. For him, since these have already been accredited to the university and the Ministry of Education, the teacher should have freedom of choice. “The person chooses xis foundation because it thinks better, ué. Sometimes I’ve had two projects on a foundation and then I’m still with it, because I know it works, because I like the partnerships we already have. “
The chief auditor of Internal Audit at FUSC, Audi Vieira, does not sees the same way. For him, foundations can not be chosen by “cronyism” or preference of the contracting researcher, but by what is most advantageous to the university, following basic principles of public administration. “A foundation has to follow the rigors of the law, the same criteria as another institution,” he says.
Four-time chairman of the board approving of FUSC accounts, the Board of Trustees, Milton Horn finds it unnecessary to justify the choice of one of four foundations. For him, since these have already been accredited to the university and the Ministry of Education, the teacher should have freedom of choice. “The person chooses xis foundation because it thinks better, ué. Sometimes I’ve had two projects on a foundation and then I’m still with it, because I know it works, because I like the partnerships we already have. “
The chief auditor of Internal Audit at FUSC, Audi Vieira, does not sees the same way. For him, foundations can not be chosen by “cronyism” or preference of the contracting researcher, but by what is most advantageous to the university, following basic principles of public administration. “A foundation has to follow the rigors of the law, the same criteria as another institution,” he says.
And if not even in unrelated tenders to the foundations the FUSC does its work with rigor? The Federal Comptroller’s Office report for 2016 points out irregularities in 100% of the bids analyzed.
Neither foundations
Although they are private institutions, foundations need to use bids to hire services in the same way as public agencies. After all, its works are signed with federal educational institutions. This means that when dispensing bidding, they are required to prove market research so that the products and services purchased are cost-effective. And do you know how often the foundations disregard the bidding rules? According to the supervisory bodies, every year.
In 2015, for example, Audin pointed out that the “Composting of Urban Waste” project, in agreement with Fapeu, waived a bid for R$ 60,500 in car supplies and repairs. The criterion adopted in the choice of gas stations and mechanical workshops was proximity. There was no previous quotation of prices or research, according to the audit, nothing that justified the choice of establishments, but the fact of being on the side of FUSC. Fape replied that, for them, “the stations chosen for supplying the vehicles attended the proximity of the Campus and route to transport the waste, exactly for economicity.”
At least in this case, Fapeu was sincere by saying that it did not pre-quote prices. In 2016, responding to internal audit’s questions about the R$ 9,090 spent on new equipment for the project “Methodology for evaluating the quality of municipal investment in elementary education,” Fepese said that it lost the records of market research. Among the companies requested in the acquisition of the equipment was S.A Tour, quoted in Operation Deaf Ears as beneficiary of the lack of bidding processes of Fapeu.
In the case of S.A. Tour with Deaf Ears, Fapeu affirms that it used to use the system of accreditation of companies to perform the services of issuing tickets, booking and contracting of lodging and rental of vehicles. “The practice of accreditation is often questioned by the control bodies, without adequate reasoning, in our understanding. In this question of accreditation, observing the principles established in art. 37, caput, of the Federal Constitution, the procedure is perfectly valid, because carried out under the aegis of art. 25, caput, Law №8.666 / 1993, “ the foundation explained in an e-mail. This deals with the waiver of bidding in the case of “notorious specialization”, which may be considered due to previous good performance.
This accreditation system has already caused some confusion for Fapeu. Among them is a 2015 process, in which the S.A. Tour side by side to the Trend Tour are said to be injured by the superintendent of the foundation, Gilberto Vieira Angelo, in power until today. The companies claim that Metropolitana Turismo would be benefiting unduly from Fapeu. As stated in the lawsuit, Metropolitana met almost all the contracts and covenants of the foundation. The two companies ended up losing, because the federal judge Adriano Jose Pinheiro understood that it was not up to the State to regulate the selective processes of the Fapeu.
The hiring of Metropolitana Turismo has already been the subject of questioning previously. In 2014, the Accounting Department of the FUSC (sector on which soon will talk) questioned the choice of the tour company in the project “System of prevention, control and emergency care in accidents with products on the BR 101 south stretch”, managed by Fapeu. According to the analysis, the foundation should have tendered to be able to contract Metropolitana, since the accreditation did not follow the rule of exclusivity. According to the document, “the accreditation term signed with the Metropolitan Company is not exclusive since the Foundation also contracted a related article with Attitude Turismo Ltda (item 12), so it was characterized, in this case, that there was discretion for part of FAPEU in the choice of the service provider. Thus, it can not be observed in these contracts that the Foundation has safeguarded the principle of impersonality. “
Everybody needs a plan
All the hiring of people and services must be foreseen in the work plan, which is nothing more than the planning of activities and expenses that a project must propose to be approved. In the 2008 report, Federal Comptroller’s Office the explains that without a work plan detailing services, labor and materials to be used, it is difficult “to verify the regularity and economicity of the agreed values, but also makes it impossible to supervise and monitor the execution of such covenants. “
It is in the work plan that is justified how will be selected the fellows and coordinators of the project. And, like so much of what was cited in this report, this aspect is not usually followed strictly. In 2016, of all the projects analyzed by Internal Audit, only Funjab’s had a selective process for fellows. In an e-mail, Gilberto Vieira Angelo, the superintendent of Fapeu, said he was aware of this charge. “We have instructed the project coordinators to promote a selective process for granting scholarships and advertising through a public notice, including the criteria adopted.” Fapeu was the only foundation that answered Zero’s questions.
The work plans can also be useful for debunking problematic projects, allowing for collecting of aspects that are not fulfilled, or that are not followed correctly. This is the case of the project “System of prevention, control and emergency response in accidents with products on highway BR 101 southern stretch”, which lasted between 2010 and 2012. It was financed by the National Department of Transportation Infrastructure and managed by Fapeu. The coordinator, Ariovaldo Bolzan stated in a document never to have received a grant for the project. In the meantime, the Accounting Department found an inconsistency with the work plan, in which it was stated that he received R$ 6,400 monthly, resulting in R$ 83,200 at the end. This and other inconsistencies were not thoroughly investigated, as FUSC did not follow the advice of the Accounting Department to open a Special Account and to allow the Brazilian Court of Audit to play a fundamental role in the analysis of this project. Chief of Cabinet at the time, Carlos Vieira explains that the Comptroller would have asked them to wait, because the National Department of Transportation Infrastructure who should open this process, which did not happen.
In fact, irregularities were found in all audits and inspections on this National Department of Transportation Infrastructure project, either by the Federal Comptroller’s Office, Internal Audits, or Accounting Office of FUSC. Among them are expenses such as reimbursement of travel without the presentation of the necessary reports; transportation and food expenses of R$ 404,445, equivalent to 67% above the expected R$ 241,900. There were increases of 121.28% in third party hiring expenses. According to the Accounting report, this expenditure was originally R$ 141,360 and ended at R$ 312,797.
The Federal Comptroller’s Office found that part of those involved in this project (Bolzan included) were simultaneously involved in two other large projects funded by DNIT. The Comptroller’s report points out suspicions about the remuneration and workload that these people would be exerting in the projects. Through the Access to Information Act, the Zero tried to find out who were the members and what the amounts involved. More precisely, the newspaper asked FUSC for the names, amounts and hourly rates of all persons benefiting from grants from foundations in the last ten years. The information was denied on the grounds that it was personal data. The first resource was ignored, causing the report to record a second in sequence. This time we were denied “lack of time”. Finally, we await a response from the Federal Comptroller’s Office.
This brings us to another complication concerning foundations: lack of transparency.
Transparency and Supervision
Former University Counsil alumni, former student Norberto Siemonn and professors William Vianna and Fábio Lopes have the same opinion: the main problem of foundations is the lack of transparency in their actions and expenditures. The Office of the Comptroller General pointed out in 2008 that “the uncontrolled environment of such agreements prevents FUSC from identifying, inhibiting and avoiding the occurrence of misuse of resources, overcharging, over-pricing and misuse of resources managed by the foundations of support.”
The lack of control over the agreements is caused precisely by the lack of incentive to transparency and compliance with the recommendations of the supervisory bodies, that is what Professor William Vianna believes. He finds fault in the two largest bodies of the university, University Counsil and the Board of Trustees, responsible for approving all accounts of FUSC. That’s because in Counsil, it’s not unusual for the teacher responsible for the foundation’s re-accreditation opinion to be someone who has received scholarships at some point. The same applies to the Board of Trustees, where the board member may approve covenants in which he or she is or has been involved. Servant Teresinha Ceccato, for example, was responsible for approving the accounts of two Fapeu projects in which she was listed as a consultant: “System of prevention, control and emergency response in accidents with products on highway BR 101 southbound” and “Environmental Management and Execution of Environmental Programs in BR 386 / RS “, which is currently under investigation.
The current chairman of the Board of Trustees Milton Horn believes that it is unethical for a board member to participate in any project that it itself will approve. Milton also spoke of the difficulties that the Council has been having because of problems in the management of Ms Roselane Neckel (2012–2016). “When we got there, there were about 580 accounts overdue. Now with the help of two counters we reduced it to 440! “
Chief of Staff in the management of Roselane, Professor Carlos Vieira says that when management began there were even more delays. “The Board of Trustees had something in between 700 overdue bills.” Seeking a resolution, says the professor, management created a new sector, the Accounting. Six accountants were responsible for technically analyzing all new foundation contracts as well as the late ones. The differential would be the fact that the sector is formed by qualified people, who would do purely technical analysis. In theory, this would help the Board of Trustees to give more accurate and grounded opinions.
The sector was created in 2014 and extinguished in August 2016, four months after the start of the management of Cancelier and its pro-rector Jair Napoleão, of the Proadministration Pro-rector, to which the sector was linked. For Jair Napoleon, Accounting should have never existed, at least not linked to his Pro-rector. Because, in his view, foundations accounts analysis is not the duty of the pro-rector, but the Board of Trustees.
Milton Horn also disdains the Accounting. He believed that the body was to go over the Board of Trustees. “Before they passed us, they had their doubts straight with the Federal Comptroller’s Office, disregarding the Board of Trustees.” Unlike the Comptroller, which in 2015 emphasized the sector as positive to maintain control of the foundational expenses, Milton thinks that the Accounting only served to “disrupt the Board, thing of the previous management, right?”
Carlos Vieira believes that these negative views on the sector stem from the nuisance he caused. “People are embarrassed to approve accounts that the accountants gave a caveat or indicated disapproval. Suddenly, you can no longer approve dubious covenants. “
Only one of the accountants sought by the report wanted to speak, on condition that we did not disclose her name. She explains that the management of Jair Napoleon in his Pro-rector has plastered the prosecution, causing accountants to be forced to leave the sector. Jair defends himself by saying that the Accounting dissolved organically. The people were leaving, leaving no choice but to officialize the extinction of the sector. “The accounting in the organizational structure never existed, it was not extinguished, it just disappeared and no longer exists.”
The accountant, however, says that the real fuse for the accountants’ departure came on June 15th, 2016, during the analysis of the accounts of the project “Research, evaluation, development and integrative methodology of educational portals of TV Escola and Portals of Digital Contents of the Ministry of Education”. In this case, four signed a document questioning the legal validity of the accreditation of the company Easy, Travel and Tourism; Metropolitan Tourism; and Attitude Turismo When added the expenses with the three gave around R$ 590,000. Instead of answering the questions, Jair told the accountants that “in our opinion it is not for the accountant to make a judgment on the smoothness or veracity of the documents presented by the foundations … we suggest that the accounting be limited to the rendering of accounts of the agreements and contracts “.
In response, the accountants stated that, according to the legislation itself, “accountability should cover the accounting, legality, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness aspects of each project, and the institution should support the real-time monitoring of the physical-financial execution of the project and situation of each project.”
The discussion grew to a point that, in response, the very Fapeu questioned the competence of the Accounting Department. After wear, the accountants didn’t approve to the project accounts. This was the latest account analysis. Internal Audit’s chief auditor sees resistance from the academic community to oversight agencies in general, not just to the Accounting Department. “They say that ‘everything is bureaucracy’. They are not looking at the oversight function. They tell people that having more control locks, I do not think so! “
Originally published at medium.com on November 16, 2017.
