TCU clears Haddad, Mercadante and Paim of alleged irregularities at Fies
The Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) decided, by a 5-2 vote, not to punish former Education Ministers Fernando Haddad and Aloizio Mercadante, as well as José Henrique Paim and former Planning Ministers Miriam Belchior and Nelson Barbosa, regarding alleged irregularities in the FIES (Student Financing Fund for Higher Education). The Court understood that there were no manifest illegalities in the management acts at the time and that those responsible were merely executing orders, in addition to it being a social program.
247 The Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) decided, by a 5-2 vote, not to punish former Education Ministers Fernando Haddad and Aloizio Mercadante, as well as José Henrique Paim and former Planning Ministers Miriam Belchior and Nelson Barbosa, regarding alleged irregularities in the FIES (Student Financing Fund for Higher Education). The Court understood that there were no manifest illegalities at the time in the management acts and that those responsible were executors of orders, in addition to it being a social program.
"It was Minister Ana Arraes who called the mismanagement of FIES a "disaster" during the 2016 trial, in which the court pointed to a "distortion" of the program's purposes, with the "indiscriminate granting of credit" without prior analysis, resulting from the government's lack of planning. The audit had shown that, between 2009 and 2015, the number of beneficiaries of the program grew rapidly, reaching 2,2 million, while the government loosened the requirements for participation. The largest increase in enrollment (1,2 million new contracts) occurred between 2013 and 2014, a period preceding Dilma Rousseff's reelection campaign, during which Mercadante and Paim alternated in leading the Ministry of Education.
On Wednesday, the court also issued an internal order for technical teams to open processes to verify the mechanisms for assessing fiscal risks surrounding public policies. The aim is to analyze the fiscal impact that public policies may have.
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