The TCU will investigate the R$ 20 billion purchase by the armed forces in the United States

President of Federal Court of Accounts (TCU)Minister Bruno DantasAuthorized auditors of the agency to travel to us To investigate purchases made by military units armed forces A total of BRL 20 billion from 2018 to 2022 in Washington. Time covers governments Michael Temer (2018) and Jair Bolsonaro (2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022).

In five years, 57,640 transactions were recorded in the US capital by branches of the Navy, Army and Air Force.

A study of Brazilian military units in the United States revealed by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo. oh Estado This Saturday, 18 TCU had access to dispatch.

The TCU auditors are expected to stay in the US from April 12 to 20. In Washington, they will carry out studies at the Brazilian Naval Commission (CNBW), the Military Commission (CEBW) and the Aeronautical Commission (CABW). The last audit by TCU of U.S.-based military commissions, using face-to-face procedures, was in 1997 when Gov. Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Among the reasons TCU provided for the investigation In the logo Now the fact is that “Data normally stored in the purchasing system was found to be missing”. The auditors requested access to the system from the armed forces, but were denied access, citing classified information. TCU also argued that the board of auditors had the legal authority to analyze the information and that the required data did not include public safety procurements.

Army and Air Force commissions in Washington have their own warehouses to store supplies purchased overseas. In Europe, the Brazilian Naval Commission in Europe (CNBE) and the Brazilian Aeronautical Commission in Europe (CABE) still have headquarters, but neither have their own or rented warehouses.

In the US, auditors will carry out a documentary examination (to check whether the transactions conducted are documented), physical inspection (to check the existence of items or not), direct observation (to check whether the processes are being carried out properly) , interviews and content analysis (database conference).

The audit is based on an article in TCU’s internal regulations to check the “economy, effectiveness and efficiency” of purchases.

Liked by Estado Navy, Army and Air Force Commands and the Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment about TCU’s investigation of US-based units by the time of this report.

oh Estado Last Thursday, the 16th, a document produced during the transition from the administration of Jair Bolsonaro was revealed. Luis Inacio Lula da Silva It blames the armed forces for the lack of transparency in the central government. The Transparency, Integrity, and Regulation Technical Committee said in repeated cases of noncompliance with the Access to Information Act that the military refused to make public documents required of citizens in 2019 and 2022, including information about officers’ operational careers, from contracts to invoices. .

Report received by Estado It says that in recent years many barriers have been placed on transparency and access to information. With regard to the armed forces in particular, it points to a “strong tendency to consider ‘personal’ information about members of the military to be non-personal information of government employees, if at all.

For example, the document says the Army denied access to public procurement invoices, electronic bidding documents, government employee salaries, list of companies that signed contracts with the Army, opinions, technical notes, regulatory processes and other basic data. As for the Air Force Command, the technical committee has criticized the denial of access to passenger lists and the cost of official flights. Finally, he reports that the Navy is keeping 77,000 documents classified.