Faep challenges CNA's spending of R$ 31 million.

From Rural BR Agriculture - The Paraná State Agriculture Federation (Faep) has filed a lawsuit to cancel the approval of the 2013 accounts of the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA). In the lawsuit, obtained exclusively by Canal Rural, Faep contests more than R$ 31 million in expenses of the entity and requests more details about the amounts collected from producers.

According to the lawsuit challenging the CNA's accounts, there were problems during the voting process for last year's financial report, such as missing documents, prohibition of external audits, withholding of files, among others. The main point of the document details that the "third-party expenses" category alone totals R$ 12,9 million and "projects" another R$ 18 million. The Faep initiative comes at the close of the deadline for registering candidates for the CNA presidency. The deadline ended this Monday, the 11th.

All requests made to the courts were also made to the entity, but without success, according to the president's advisor, Carlos Augusto Albuquerque.

"The goal is to find out what happened to the R$ 31 million collected from union dues and to conduct an independent audit, but the requests were denied by Senator Kátia Abreu," Albuquerque stated.

The process indicates that the meeting of the Council of Representatives that approved the CNA's accounts, held on April 25th, was convened without all the necessary documents having been submitted in advance for the council members' analysis. Faep then filed official letter nº 0499-14/GP on April 22nd, requesting certain documents for analysis. According to the lawsuit, at the April 25th meeting, Senator Kátia Abreu allegedly confirmed the existence of the official letters and stated that there had not been enough time to produce the documentation before the council meeting.

After several debates at the meeting, including a request for an extension, the process states that the senator declared there was no need to analyze the accounts and that she would not postpone the meeting. At the end of the meeting, the president of Faep requested the audio recordings of the discussions and received a CD. Upon reviewing the contents, he found only PowerPoint slides.

In total, the CNA's financial report shows more than R$ 70 million in expenses in 2013, with a loss of more than R$ 5 million. Besides not making the financial report available, the details of the expenses are also not very clear. Last year alone, R$ 9,3 million was spent under the heading "professional services/legal entity", R$ 1,5 million on "non-permanent staff", R$ 1,5 million on "commissions", R$ 1,6 million on "occasional expenses", R$ 90 on "miscellaneous materials", R$ 1,4 million on airfare and almost R$ 2 million on telephone bills.

In addition to the dissatisfaction of leaders in the agricultural sector, the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) is conducting an audit of the CNA.

"It's ongoing, it's a process that hasn't yet been decided, so we can't give out information about what's happening, but basically it's related to revenue collection," said the president of the TCU (Federal Court of Accounts), Augusto Nardes.

In a statement, the CNA (National Confederation of Agriculture) says that the questions raised regarding the accounts for the 2013 fiscal year are "justified in the political context of the upcoming elections that will define the new CNA board for the 2014-2017 term." The press office emphasizes that the accounts in question underwent three scrutiny processes: external audit, fiscal council, and council of representatives – which includes 27 presidents of state federations of agriculture and livestock. Only three states opposed the approval of the accounts: Mato Grosso, São Paulo, and Paraná. Canal Rural contacted Kátia Abreu's press officer but has not yet received a response.