CGU head says Rui Costa “knew the problem” at the INSS before scandal

The Minister of the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU), Vinícius Carvalho, said in an interview with the newspaper The globe, published this Saturday (7), That the Minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa, “knew the problem” involving the fraud at the National Institute of Social Security (INSS) before the operation that revealed the scandal. The statement was a direct response to Planalto’s criticism, which tried to attribute to the CGU the communication failure that led to the political crisis in the management of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

“The information that people didn’t know don’t do it. Minister Rui knows that,” said Carvalho. According to him, the CGU held meetings with the Social Security team and internal notifications were made about the advancement of the audit. The focus of the investigation was technical cooperation agreements signed with entities that unduly charged retirees and pensioners, considered the “egg of the serpent” of fraud. The contracts, according to the minister, were signed in 2021 and 2022, during the Bolsonaro government.

The case culminated in the departure of Carlos Lupi from the command of the Ministry of Social Security. Rui Costa stated that the crisis was only installed because the then minister would not have been informed. Carvalho, however, argued that the alerts occurred at the technical level of the portfolio, and that the CGU fulfilled the role attributed to him by Lula: being intolerant with fraud and corruption.

“We could pretend we didn’t see. Or do some perfumery, as was done in the Bolsonaro government. We chose to investigate, punish and compensate the retirees,” he said.

The operation against the fraud has become a political headache for the Planalto, especially with suspicion of favoring entities linked to government allies. Asked if there was selectivity in requests for blocking resources – since entities such as Conafer and Contag, which have political connections with the government, were left out of the first wave – Carvalho denied any armor. “All entities that have been fraudulent will be held responsible. If tomorrow indicates against Contag, the process will be opened the next day.”

Changes and Transparency

The minister also pointed out that the CGU evaluates structural changes in the INSS beneficiaries discount system. According to him, the controllership report indicates that the current model is fragile and may need to be extinguished or reformulated with more technology and transparency. “The INSS did not even receive documentation from the entities. This has to be reviewed. If the discount is kept on leaf, it may be the case of charging a remuneration for the service.”

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The interview also addressed criticism of CGU’s performance in investigations against the previous government. Carvalho denied political persecution and stated that the findings followed objective evidence. The case of Jair Bolsonaro’s vaccine card, for example, would have started with a request via the information to access information.

Asked about the Lula government’s promise to expand the transparency of public data, Carvalho admitted that there is still resistance within the Federal Administration. The blockade of 16 million documents involving covenants and parliamentary amendments was cited as an example of an error that has already been corrected. “We have no commitment to the error,” he said.

INSS scandal

An investigation by the Federal Police and the CGU revealed, on April 23 this year, a billionaire scheme of fraud against retired and pensioners of the INSS. Union associations and entities registered irregular beneficiaries, using false signatures to authorize monthly discounts on the payroll.

The scheme, which began in the Bolsonaro government in 2019, gained strength in the current management and may have reached more than 4 million people, with a loss estimated at R $ 3.2 billion between 2023 and the first half of 2024. One of the main targets of the investigation is the lobbyist Antonio Carlos Camilo Antunes, known as the “INSS Buscan”, pointed as a central operator of fraud and 21 companies.

The crisis has already caused the INSS president, Alessandro Stefanutto, and then -welfare minister Carlos Lupi, both politically pressured by the advancement of the complaints. Lupi, although not mentioned in the investigations, left office after direct negotiation with President Lula.

For Lupi’s place, the government appointed Wolney Queiroz, former PDT deputy and hitherto executive secretary of social security. The choice, however, did not please the opposition, as Queiroz attended meetings in 2023 where the theme of fraud was discussed, but without effective actions at the time.

PL and the new parliamentarians press for the creation of a CPI to investigate the case, which concerns the Plateau, especially in the face of the fragility of the allied base in Congress. The government promised to reimburse the injured. The Attorney General of the Union (AGU) was called to process the entities involved, but the absence of immediate responses contributes to maintaining the crisis at high temperature.