Government paid emergency aid to 135,000 dead, says CGU

The CGU (Comptroller General of the Union) identified “potentially undue” payments of R$ 11.2 billion of emergency aid in 2020 and 2021, points out a technical report prepared by the body on the transfers made by the Ministry of Citizenship in these two years.

The amounts under suspicion included 7.7% of the people who received the benefit. Only in relation to people with “indicative of death”, R$ 336 million were transferred to 135.7 thousand beneficiaries.

Other cases of undue payments identified refer to people who had a monthly family income different from the established criteria, to persons under 18 years of age and even to residents abroad.

Approximately R$ 9.4 billion were improperly paid in relation to the first emergency aid, with installments of R$ 600, created after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020.

Another undue R$ 808.9 million was paid as residual emergency aid, whose installments had a value of R$ 300. In this case, 3.2% of the beneficiaries should not, according to the CGU, have received the amounts.

In 2021, another BRL 1.07 billion was potentially unduly paid in installments ranging from BRL 150 to BRL 375. This volume also represents 7.7% of beneficiaries.

In these cases, the residual aid and the 2021 aid were paid respectively BRL 10 million and BRL 44 million to beneficiaries “with a death certificate”.

Part of the amount unduly paid, points out the CGU, was refunded. BRL 990 million were reimbursed in relation to the first emergency aid, BRL 31.5 million for residual aid and BRL 103.6 million for the 2021 aid.

“The initiatives developed by the Ministry of Citizenship during the execution of the benefits resulted in improvements in the related regulation and in the search for greater adequacy in targeting the target audience, as well as in actions to avoid the continuity of undue payments”, says the CGU in your report.

However, the agency continues, the repetition of undue payments in the residual aid and in the 2021 aid shows that “the eligibility criteria assessment stage did not incorporate the necessary and sufficient improvements to significantly mitigate the occurrences in relation to the percentage of beneficiaries who received the benefits improperly”.

Sought, the Ministry of Citizenship stated that it has been carrying out a series of actions aimed at the reimbursement of benefits paid outside the eligibility criteria.

“Among the measures adopted are the redemption of unmoved amounts at Caixa Econômica Federal and the availability of the website devolucaoauxilioemergencial.cidadania.gov.br, from the beginning of the benefit payments, which allows the return of resources through the issuance of a Guide to Union Collection (GRU)”, says the folder.

According to the government, around R$ 7.8 billion has returned to the Union’s coffers so far. The amounts are transferred to the single account of the National Treasury and are available to the Union.