The Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro (MPRJ) cross-checked the data with information from the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and found that 2,058 people who ran in the 2000-2020 elections received payment orders from the Fundação Centro Estadual de Estatística, Pesquisas e Training of Civil Servants of Rio de Janeiro (Ceperj). The survey also indicates that the candidates were for the positions of councillors, mayors, deputies and even substitutes in the Senate.

In a public civil action (ACP) filed on July 31 with a request for urgent relief, the The prosecution requested the suspension of payments to Ceperj and by the government of Rio de Janeiro and that all hirings and salaries be disclosed on the public agency’s electronic portal.

According to the MPRJ, the withdrawals were made at the cash desk of Bradesco branches and exceeded R$220 million.

“Withdrawals ‘in the mouth of the cashier’, which in total represent the withdrawal of almost 226.5 million reais in cash, involve an immeasurable volume of money, from public coffers, circulating ‘outside’ the system financial institution, the reality of which destination will be impossible to verify,” the initial petition pointed out.

Also according to the promoters, as an executor of projects for other state administration bodies, from 2021 Ceperj has become a supplier “of a huge volume of contracted labor for a fixed period with various agencies of the State of Rio de Janeiro, through direct contracting by Autonomous Payment Receipt (RPA)”.

For the MPRJ, the use of this structure has allowed “an explosion of expenses incurred by the foundation, boosted in large part by the income from the Cedae auction subsidy”.

“The identification of the people hired by Ceperj to carry out these projects is not available either in the Official Gazette or in the transparency portal of the State of Rio de Janeiro, or even in the consultation of the administrative processes made available for consultation. public in the SEI system”, underlined the prosecutors Eduardo Santos de Carvalho, Gláucia Santana and Silvio Ferreira de Carvalho Neto, who signed the petition.

According to surveys, the remuneration of these self-employed workers is not even deposited in bank accounts held by each service provider. “Millionaire ‘secret pay’ amounts are spent through ‘payment order’ shipments, so each payee’s pay is increased by withdrawing cash, ‘in the cashier’s mouth ‘, in the branches of the Bradesco bank, in a procedure which goes against the most prosaic rules of prevention of money laundering, ”said the prosecutors.