Congress blocks agreement in Pilar.

Alagoas247 - The Official Gazette of the Union of this Thursday (20) published an act signed by the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros (PMDB), in which the National Congress blocks the physical, budgetary and financial execution of an agreement signed between the National Health Foundation (Funasa) and the Municipality of Pilar, metropolitan region of Maceió, with a view to the implementation, expansion and improvement of the public sewage system in that municipality. According to the publication, the act is based on a ruling by the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU), which allegedly identified overpricing in the contracting of the service.

Through the agreement, dated December 9, 2005, the city government secured R$ 2,170 million in resources for investments in basic sanitation, covering 58,5% of the city's area. However, after investigation, the TCU (Federal Court of Accounts) found irregularities such as excessive prices that did not conform to a specific work plan.

The audit by the Court of Accounts identified, back in 2011, an overpricing of more than R$ 340, equivalent to 17% of the contracted value, in addition to the absence of contract registration in the Integrated System of General Services Administration (Siasg). The TCU report was forwarded for analysis by the Senate's Joint Budget Committee.

At the time, the Pilar city hall presented a new budget spreadsheet, revising the project submitted to Funasa, the agency that transfers the funds to the municipality. Even so, according to the TCU (Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts), the documents still contained inconsistencies that were not corrected.

"The corrective measures were not implemented by the city hall, and Funasa initiated a special audit to recover the resources that were misused," said federal deputy Afonso Florence (PT-BA), coordinator of the Committee for the Evaluation of Information on Works and Services with Indications of Serious Irregularities (COI).

The mayor-elect of Pilar, Carlos Alberto Canuto (PMDB), said that the Municipality has already completed the full return of the funds to Funasa, in order to secure new resources through the development of other projects.

"We still have a balance of approximately six hundred thousand reais from this agreement. But we will return everything to the competent authority, since everything remains at a standstill, until we can resolve this situation. Let the former manager accountable to those responsible," said the mayor, referring to former mayor Renato Rezende (PSDB).

With gazetaweb.com