"Symbol of corruption and incompetence"

247 – This Saturday, the newspaper O Globo published a harsh editorial about the handover of the Ministry of Transport to the PR party, led by Senator and former Minister Alfredo Nascimento, during Lula's government. The most visible legacy of this administration is the Juquinha scandal, which exploded in President Dilma's lap. Nascimento, "cleaned out" by her, is now an ally of José Serra in the municipal election in São Paulo. Read the Globo editorial below:

"Symbol of corruption and incompetence"

The dismantling of the corruption scheme built in the Ministry of Transport starting in 2003, when then-President Lula handed the Ministry over to future founders of the PR party, helped create the idea of ​​an "ethical cleanup" surrounding President Dilma.

In the wave of resignations last year, prominent figures included the minister himself, Alfredo Nascimento, a senator from Amazonas and president of the party, and the powerful director-general of DNIT, Luiz Pagot, responsible for signing construction contracts and – equally or even more importantly – agreements surrounding the infamous contract addenda. But only after these contracts were stamped at the backroom deals set up in the ministry by the party and, according to allegations, handed over to the management of the indefatigable Valdemar Costa Neto (PR-SP), a convicted member of the Mensalão scandal, who was forced to resign his mandate to avoid impeachment and return to the Chamber in the following election.

At the time, the dismissed president of Valec, the state-owned railway construction company linked to the ministry, José Francisco das Neves, nicknamed Juquinha, who had held the position since the first year of Lula's administration, was overshadowed. But today, not only does Juquinha frequently appear in police news reports due to corruption, but Valec has also become a symbol of how incompetence and corruption can thrive in a state-owned company. At Valec, under Juquinha's leadership, these two characteristics observed in the public sector combined perfectly.

Juquinha, also a partner of Costa Neto in this branch of the federal Executive branch, was arrested earlier this month, accused of committing fraud and profiting from it in bidding processes for construction work on sections of the North-South Railway, a project that has been dragging on for two decades, another monument to state negligence. Operation Pay Train – a well-chosen name – carried out by the Federal Police in Goiás, also targeted Marivone Ferreira das Neves and Jader Ferreira das Neves, Juquinha's wife and son, who benefited from the staggering increase in the assets of the former president of Valec.

Something worthy of one of those entrepreneurial geniuses of the digital world: the value of João Francisco's assets, only those identified so far, reaches R$ 60 million, well above the R$ 1,5 million declared by Juquinha in 2003 when he took over Valec. The counterpart to predatory management is, as always, enormous damage to society.

José Eduardo Castello was appointed to Valec at the end of last year and initiated audits of the North-South railway project to assess the extent of the damage. According to the newspaper "Valor," most of the 855 kilometers of the southern section, between Palmas (TO) and Anápolis (GO), were inspected. An additional expense of R$ 400 million, or almost half a billion reais, will be incurred solely for poorly installed structures and rails.

Corrective work will be needed on at least 210 kilometers, therefore on 25% of the stretch. Serious errors are distributed across five sections, representing half of the railway's 855 kilometers.

It's a major scandal within another, the very manipulation of the Ministry of Transport for financial gain and also nepotism (a son of former minister Alfredo Nascimento became a successful businessman). Valec deserves a broad and thorough investigation, as it is emblematic of what can happen when cronyism takes over the State.