INSS Parliamentary Inquiry Commission hears from CGU minister this Thursday.

247 - The Joint Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPMI) investigating fraud in payroll deductions from INSS benefits will hear, this Thursday (2), the Minister of the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU), Vinícius Marques de Carvalho, as a guest. The hearing was arranged by the government base amidst the political dispute over the pace of the investigations and occurs after the presentation of three requests, authored by Senator Izalci Lucas (PL-DF), Senator Soraya Thronicke (Podemos-MS) and Deputy Duarte Jr. (PSB-MA), vice-president of the collegiate body.

The investigation that led to the creation of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry gained momentum after a series of reports from the portal. MetropolisThe report, published starting in December 2023, revealed the scheme of undue discounts and pointed out control flaws in the INSS system. The reports formed the basis for an inquiry by the Federal Police and investigations by the CGU itself, resulting in Operation Sem Desconto (Operation Without Discount), launched on April 23, and the downfall of the then president of INSS, Alessandro Stefanutto, and the former Minister of Social Security, Carlos Lupi.

Lawmakers want to clarify why integrity mechanisms did not address the problem sooner, given that the case dates back to warnings issued by various agencies since 2018. In a previous hearing before the committee, the director of the CGU (Comptroller General of the Union), Eliane Viegas Mota, stated that the INSS (National Institute of Social Security) had been aware of the scheme since 2019, but did not pursue further investigations. Documents cited by the investigation indicate that, over the years, the institute received notifications from the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF), Procon-SP (São Paulo State Consumer Protection Agency), and the Federal Public Defender's Office regarding membership deductions made without the proper authorization of policyholders.

The chronology of the warnings covers distinct administrations: it began in 2018, still under the government of Michel Temer (MDB); it continued through 2019 and 2020, a period in which Procon-SP, the MPF, and the DPU demanded action; it continued in 2021 and 2022, with new inquiries about the regulation of discounts; and it reached 2023, when, already under the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), irregularities were pointed out in Technical Cooperation Agreements signed with entities that made collections directly from the INSS payroll.

In addition to hearing Vinícius de Carvalho's testimony, the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPMI) has on its agenda the voting on 97 requests concerning summons and invitations, requisition of documents, and breaches of confidentiality. The expectation is that the commission will make progress in tracing the validation flows that allowed private entities to register charges on the benefits payroll without proper verification of the beneficiaries' consent.

At the heart of the debate will be the role of the CGU (Brazilian Comptroller General's Office) in supervising and promptly initiating audits, especially after the consolidation of recurring warnings. The presence of the head of the Comptroller's Office is seen as a key moment to detail any governance failures, assign responsibilities, and suggest adjustments to preventive audits and mechanisms for blocking discounts that do not meet legal criteria.