PGR extends the Lava Jato working group in Paraná until January 2021 | Politics

The current operating period of the working group would end on Thursday (10), if there were no extension. The prosecutors responsible for the inquiries had requested a term greater than one year (until September 2021).

The structure of the Lava Jato working group in Paraná was created in April 2014, one month after the launch of the first operation. Since then, the job has been expanded seven times.

According to the PGR, the document to be published “indicates that the Superior Council of the Federal Public Ministry (CSMPF) must adopt solutions to expand and institutionalize joint action in the fight against corruption throughout the country.”

“In total, there are 11 prosecutors and two regional prosecutors who will assist Alessandro Oliveira, the new head of Office 15, which concentrates the investigations on diversions in Petrobras. The PGR’s decision also ensures, as requested, that 11 of the 14 members are exclusively dedicated to FT of Curitiba ”, says the PGR.

At the end of the afternoon, the dispatch from Sub-PGR Henrique Jacques de Medeiros had not yet been released. According to the PGR, the expansion of the working group was accompanied by a series of suggestions for changes in the team’s work.

“Among the possible measures is the creation of new offices to combat corruption in the MPF units that require it, such as Curitiba, for example, which depends on the appreciation of the CSMPF (Superior Council of the Federal Public Ministry”), says the statement. .

The PGR also considers, in the announcement, that MPF units from other states that assigned members to the working group have complained about the extension of the term.

“The Office of the Attorney General of the Nation in Minas Gerais, for example, claimed to consent for the ‘last time’; the one in Campinas (SP), requested that the assignment be for a ‘reasonable’ period; Guarulhos (SP), in turn, until a maximum February “, affirms the published text.

The PGR suggests in the document that, instead of the successive enlargements of the working group, the Superior Council of the MP redesign the Attorney General’s Office in Paraná to assume the functions.

As alternatives, the document proposes “increasing the number of offices in the area after the extinction of units in municipalities, or even proposing investments in the federal Gaeco in Paraná, which was created in August by the attorney general, Augusto Aras, upon request. of the unit “. , and has five prosecutors to act in the fight against corruption and organized crime ”.

“The Gaecos, which constitute a permanent structure, are a formula used successfully and institutionally by the Brazilian parliamentarian for more than 25 years,” says the text. The acronym Gaeco is used for Special Action Groups to Combat Organized Crime.

The PGR affirms that one of the reasons for the need for changes is the spending cap approved by the National Congress. The rule came into force in 2017 and prohibits most public spending from growing above inflation.

“The extension of a large working group that aspires to grow when there are no more competitions for officials and lawyers to attend to the needs of the Institution, in various other Units, is not only a matter of good will. As the chief prosecutors heard here demonstrate, it is a ‘sacrifice’ of the entire Institution ”, Medeiros says in the office.

“Support [de outros estados], which was supposed to be extraordinary and punctual for a case to become permanent, it cannot be transferred to other demands that arise in the Public Ministry and an organizational climate of unequal treatment between disadvantaged and privileged is established, a center of excellence and needy units ” . , continues the sub-PGR.

Earlier this Thursday, the G1 and GloboNews journalist, Valdo Cruz, had already anticipated that the attorney general, Augusto Aras, should expand the working group and propose adjustments.

Aras criticizes what he describes as “personalistic” the actions of the prosecutors who work at Lava Jato, without following common rules of the Public Ministry. She often says that prosecutors have autonomy, but they cannot work as if they were an autonomous body.

Members of the working groups in Curitiba, São Paulo, and Rio have complained that they are the target of a rollback operation in the fight against corruption.

In recent days, lawyer Deltan Dallagnol left the Lava Jato command in Curitiba, prosecutors from the São Paulo task force called for a collective resignation, and Operation Greenfield coordinator Anselmo Cordeiro Lopes also asked to leave office.