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Symbol of the approach of President Jair Bolsonaro (without party) with the so-called centão, the National Department of Works against Droughts (Dnocs) is designated by the Federal Court of Audit (TCU) as one of the organs of the federal government most susceptible to Fraud and corruption risk.
The evaluation was conducted in a 2018 TCU audit, launched in the month following Bolsonaro’s election to the Presidency. The conclusions of the work were sent to Planalto and the transition team.
With a budget of around R $ 1 billion for the year 2020, the agency had pointed out “very high” weaknesses in all the determined aspects: in the prevention of fraud and corruption, in the management of ethics and integrity, in transparency, control and also in the appointment of its directors.
“This work is expected to serve to implement improvements in the control mechanisms of the institutions of the Federal Executive Power, especially in the preventive and detective practices of fraud and corruption,” TCU said in a note at the time.
Questioned by the report, through the advice of the Ministry of Regional Development, to which Dnocs is linked, if there were changes in these mechanisms from 2019 until now, the agency did not speak until the conclusion of this edition.
Last Wednesday (6), the former director of Procon in Pernambuco, Fernando Marcondes de Araújo Leão, was named general director of Dnocs, a sign of Bolsonaro’s approach towards parties like PP, PL and republicans.
He was nominated by Congressman Arthur Lira (PP-AL), leader of the center in the Chamber.
However, this was only the latest episode in a series of controversies that has involved the body since the 1990s.
Dnocs has been divided by parties such as the PFL (now DEM), PMDB (now MDB) and the PP itself during the governments of Itamar Franco (MDB), Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB), Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), Dilma Rousseff (PT) and Michel Temer (MDB).
The organ is centennial and was created in 1909 under the name of Iocs (Inspection of Works against Drought), and became the current Dnocs in 1945.
In 1993, it was revealed that the former president of Câmara Inocêncio de Oliveira (PE), then PFL, used Dnocs to install two wells at subsidized prices on his properties in Serra Talhada, in the interior of Pernambuco.
After the matter was made public, Inocencio paid the difference regarding the grant.
In 1999, former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso sent Congress a provisional measure that provided for the extinction of Dnocs.
“We arrived at work and there was news of the extinction. It was an unpleasant surprise,” Guilherme Evelin, acting director of the department at the time, told the “Folha de S. Paulo” newspaper. Under protests from northeast legislators, the board held.
During the Lula government, the Federal Public Ministry even investigated the suspicion of a surcharge for electoral purposes in the Dnocs works in Ceará.
In 2012, already in management, Dilma Rousseff, the then general director of the Elias Fernandes organization, sponsored by former deputy Henrique Eduardo Alves (MDB-RN), left her post after a report by the Comptroller General of the Union pointed out irregularities in its management. The government agency itself pointed out alleged deviations of R $ 192 million in works.
When the MDB decided to disembark from the Dilma government on the eve of the dismissal, in April 2016, the president indicated a sponsorship from the PP. By acting temporarily, Temer changed director.
After Fernando Henrique’s attempt to extinguish the organ, Dnocs lost strength, according to Roberto Malvezzi, advisor to the Pastoral Lands Commission in Juazeiro (BA) and former national coordinator of the entity.
“In recent years, Dnocs has little expression. It does not have an impact in the semi-arid region and it does not have a project. They still manage some dams and landfills, but the investments come mainly from state governments,” says Malvezzi, saying that Logic The “fighting drought” itself is outdated and today we are dealing with the idea of ”living with the semi-arid”.
He estimates that, although it is not very expressive, the agency serves more as a political suspension: the figure of R $ 1 billion in budget, he points out, is not high within the structure of the federal government.
Malvezzi exemplifies that the very transposition of the São Francisco River, a megaproject that sought to bring water to a part of the interior, was not touched by Dnocs or by other federal agencies associated with political indications, such as the Superintendency of Development of the Northeast (Sudene).
Dnocs himself, in a story published on its website and updated in 2016, complains about the loss of its own relevance and criticizes the practice of “elevating management positions” to “personnel not prepared for the performance of their missions”.
The centão, a block recreated in the Chamber from 2015 under the command of Eduardo Cunha (MDB-RJ), today arrested as a result of Lava-Jato, was demonized until recently by Bolsonaro and his allies, being treated as “what worse than there is in politics “, in the words of the president himself.
One of Bolsonaro’s top advisers, General Augusto Heleno (Office of Institutional Security), rehearsed in 2018 a derogatory song against the group during a PSL convention, a party for which the president was elected.
“If you scream to catch a centão, there won’t be one, my brother,” Heleno sang, in a scene filmed and published on social networks, comparing the title of parliamentarians with thieves.
In the undemocratic protest on Sunday (3), attended by Bolsonaro, the centão, who is one of the main people involved in the Lava Jato scandal, remained a target of the president’s supporters.
Bolsonaro began seeking the group’s support with the goal, according to the allies, of creating for the first time a minimal base of support in Congress that prevents the continuation of a possible impeachment process.
After meetings with Bolsonaro, the party’s leaders, who have about 200 of the 513 parliamentarians, publicly opposed the removal.
For the execution of an impediment request, the authorization of the Speaker of the House, Rodrigo Maia (DEM-RJ), now an opponent of Bolsonaro, but who has resisted giving the guarantee, needs authorization.
