AL returns funds to prisons
The governor of Alagoas, Teotonio Vilela (PSDB), returned funds to the federal government that should have been used for prison projects, instead opting for health and education projects. This information was gathered by the National Penitentiary Department (Depen), which is part of the Ministry of Justice.
Alagoas247 - A survey by the National Penitentiary Department (Depen), linked to the Ministry of Justice, indicates that in the last ten years, 15 states and the Federal District failed to use R$ 187 million released by the federal government to build and renovate prisons. Alagoas is on this list and, according to the survey, the state did not move forward with projects to establish health and education facilities for inmates.
Governor Teotonio Vilela's administration returned R$ 836.911 from contracts signed in 2008 and 2009. The funds were intended for the construction of a health module at the Desembargador Luís de Oliveira Sousa prison and an Ecumenical Cultural Center at the Santa Luzia Women's Penitentiary.
The reason given by the General Superintendence of Penitentiary Administration of Alagoas is that the two contracts were canceled at the request of Depen (National Penitentiary Department), after the federal government determined that the works would not create new spaces in the prison system.
In addition to Alagoas, the list includes Ceará, the Federal District, Goiás, Maranhão, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande do Sul, Rondônia, Sergipe, and Tocantins.
Among the various reasons cited, the most notable are the lack of resources from the states themselves to complete the works, cancellations due to delays, inadequacy of altered projects, problems in bidding processes, suspicions of irregularities, and changes in the leadership of state governments.
There are also situations where contracts were canceled by order of the federal government due to changes in prison policy; in other cases, according to some states, a presidential decree prevented the transfer of funds for projects that had not yet begun.
Brazil currently has 563,7 people imprisoned and a deficit of approximately 200 spaces in its prison system. The country is among the five in the world with the largest prison population.
In May 2013, the National Council of Justice (CNJ) asked the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) of the states to prosecute local authorities for wasting federal funds allocated to prisons. The request was based on a partial report from Depen, which indicated that R$ 103,384 million had been wasted since 2011.
With gazetaweb.com