Prosecutor demands the resignation of the head of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

MP-GO - Public Prosecutor Leila Maria de Oliveira has requested in court the removal of the president of the Goiás State Department of Transit (Detran-GO), João Furtado Neto, and the termination of the contract with the company Search Informática Ltda., signed with the objective of improving the agency's computerization. The lawsuit for administrative misconduct filed yesterday (April 8th) points to irregularities in the amendment to the contract established with the company. The defendants in the lawsuit are the agency's president, João Furtado Neto, Detran-GO, and Search Informática (click here for the full text of the lawsuit).

According to the prosecutor, in April 2013, a 12-month contract was signed with the company Search for the provision of specialized technical services for the migration, development, homologation, and maintenance of applications, for the amount of R$ 13,65 million. After one year, the first addendum was signed, aiming to extend the contract for another year, at a cost of R$ 7,8 million.

However, as the prosecutor points out, updating the initial contract value and considering the defined adjustment, the adjustment value is illegal, as it suffered an increase of 28,46%, exceeding the 25% allowed by the Bidding Law. She also highlights that, in addition to the illegality of the amendment, since the contract was signed, the company Search has not provided services efficiently. In the lawsuit, Leila Oliveira cites reports published in the local press that portrayed the difficulties in service provided by users of the agency.

According to the prosecutor, at the end of 2014, “in a desperate attempt to solve the flaws and implement a new system, João Furtado Neto decreed that the services of Detran-GO would be suspended for 16 days, between December 19th and January 5th.” She adds that, in addition to the system having been offline several times during 2013 and 2014, the suspension of services for 16 days contradicted the provisions of Public Notice No. 2/2012 of the traffic agency, which, in item 3.3 of the Basic Project, stipulated the obligation to maintain continuity of services during the system transition.

Losses
Prosecutor Leila Oliveira also mentions that the suspension caused harm to the work of the Goiás police. As detailed in the lawsuit, during the period of the system's suspension, no criminal incident reports were filed in the National Public Security System, used by the State Police Department for the Repression of Thefts and Robberies of Motor Vehicles, since, without the traffic authority's system, the police cannot deregister stolen or robbed vehicles or even report their status after an incident report is filed.

Furthermore, a series of problems were observed for users, dispatchers, and Driver Training Centers, as biometric reading and document submission were hampered, and there were also difficulties in paying Vehicle Property Tax (IPVA) bills due to barcode errors. Finally, it is mentioned that the change in the traffic authority's system erased the records of vehicles in two Civil Police impound lots in Goiânia, causing disruption and difficulty for victims of vehicle theft and robbery to recover their seized cars.

Orders
According to the prosecutor, judicial intervention is necessary in this matter, since the contract with the company will end on the 16th. “Due to the incomplete services and considering that there are still numerous flaws and system shutdowns that need to be corrected, it is likely that, without judicial intervention, Detran will extend the infamous contract with Search for another year, causing even more damage to the public treasury of Goiás and to administrative principles,” she stated. Therefore, among the preliminary injunction requests, it was requested that the agency be prevented from extending Contract No. 17/2013.

Regarding the request to remove the head of the agency, Leila Oliveira cites that, in addition to the clearly mismanaged actions taken by the defendant in this contract, there are several other actions he has perpetrated that would attest to the need for his removal. As an example, she points to the fact that he allowed a monopoly to only one company for the supply of vehicle license plates for the State of Goiás, as well as his insistence on the improper registration of Goiás vehicles when it was already known that a new license plate model (Mercosur model) would be implemented starting in January 2016. "Given the history presented, if João Furtado is not removed from his position, there is a risk that the Detran (Department of Motor Vehicles) will once again be harmed by his actions, and that society and the state treasury will continue to be harmed," she reiterated. (Text: Cristina Rosa / Press Office of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Goiás)