Agnelo: Innocence proven

Governor Agnelo Queiroz's testimony to the Joint Parliamentary Inquiry Commission – CPMI, nicknamed by the press as the Cachoeira CPI, to provide clarifications to the National Congress about an alleged involvement of the Brasília government with the gang of illegal gambling operator Carlinhos Cachoeira, was a cold shower for those who hoped to target him with this unnecessary summons.

 The governor initially demonstrated how much the criminal group tried to destroy his government from the moment he took office, launching attacks of all kinds. These included harassing government members with the aim of conducting business; wiretapping phones; planting news stories on blogs and in media outlets; attacking his family; calling for his impeachment; and even requesting his arrest, which was requested by a PSDB congressman. The attacks were coordinated and had Senator Demóstenes Torres as one of its main instigators. Demóstenes personally went to the Legislative Chamber of the Federal District to request his impeachment, without any documentary evidence to support the request.

The governor's life was, according to him, vilely and cowardly violated by a criminal organization that sought to link him and his government to the activities of the gang operating in the government of Goiás. He emphasized that the only link connecting the Federal District with Construtora Delta, a company accused of having Carlinhos Cachoeira as an informal partner, was a garbage collection contract inherited from the previous government, and that even so, it was the lowest-value contract among all garbage collection contracts in Brazil. He added that this contract saved the Federal District government one million reais. Today, Delta is legally barred from operating in Brasília.

Not content with trying to link the governor to organized crime, in the days leading up to his testimony before the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI), his income tax return was thoroughly scrutinized in an action orchestrated by the gang, with the intention of finding some error that could be used in their insinuations. And so it was done. Next, they planted stories in the press claiming his assets were incompatible with his salary. The following step was to talk about his house, to create similarities with the case of the governor of Goiás, whose house belonged to the illegal gambling operator Carlinhos Cachoeira. This also didn't stick. It was published that he had bought the house from the owner of a laboratory, simply because Agnelo had been the director of the National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA). The governor proved that his house had been purchased a year before he became head of that agency.

 

Agnelo, even as a witness, in a gesture that was enthusiastically applauded in the CPI plenary, surprised everyone when he made his tax, banking, and telephone records available to the Commission. The governor made a point of quoting the opinion of a man from the people who had approached him on the streets: "He who has nothing to hide has nothing to fear." It is important to emphasize that the day before, the governor of Goiás, Marconi Perilo, even when urged by parliamentarians, refused to do the same. Agnelo's gesture forced Perilo, hours later, to call one of the parliamentarians saying that he would also open his records.

Ironically, we can say that it was Agnelo who broke Perilo's confidentiality. The tone of Agnelo's testimony was completely different from that of the governor of Goiás. While Marconi Perilo limited himself to defending his relationship with the illegal gambling operator, the governor of Brasília was frank and direct in his attacks on the criminals, calling the group a gang and a criminal organization. He even cited recordings in which members of the gang, in this case the retired air force sergeant, Idalberto Matias, nicknamed Dadá, who was imprisoned for 90 days, spoke of the impossibility of infiltrating the Brasília government.

In a speech at the end of the session, PTB deputy from Pernambuco, Sílvio Costa, made a statement that summarized Governor Agnelo Queiroz's behavior during his testimony to the CPI: "Governor, you came in here like a dwarf, and you left like a giant." This observation shows how much the destabilization campaign had affected the governor of Brasília. Perhaps this parliamentarian's perception is exaggerated, since Agnelo was never a dwarf, but that's how they tried to portray the governor.

After his explanations to the National Congress, we can say that the governor has shown the society of Brasília and all of Brazil that he is innocent of the sordid accusations leveled against him by those who have always milked the state dry.

Unfortunately, we know that the yellow press, the bought blogs, and the groups whose interests have been thwarted will continue to attack the democratic and popular government of the Federal District. They will not succeed! The march of change began in 2011, when the population of the nation's capital chose the representative of the Workers' Party, Agnelo Queiroz, to govern the city. A revolution will take place in this city, and the dishonest practices of the past will no longer have a place in this government.

Let the Agnelo Queiroz government do its job!

 Deputy Chico Vigilante

Leader of the PT/PRB Bloc