Two allies of the former vice-governor of Rio Thiago Pampolha, currently advisor to the Court of State Auditors (TCE-RJ), have taken the helm of Cedae in recent months, in parallel with sensitive votes at the Court. The first of the applications was presented in early October by Governor Cláudio Castro (PL), while the government and Cedae were engaged in a dispute over compensation of 900 million reais to the Águas do Rio concessionaire. The second appointment took place after Pampolha voted in favor of the deal proposed by the government, which transferred the account to Cedae.
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The two new directors of Cedae, José Ricardo Ferreira de Brito and Philipe Campello, had worked in the Environment Secretariat of the Castro government, when Pampolha was head of this department. Brito, a former undersecretary, took Pampolha’s place between April and December 2022, when he was running for office. Campello was president of the National Institute of the Environment (Inea).
The appointments of Brito and Campello to Cedae were anticipated by the newspaper Correio da Manhã. Cedae minutes collected by GLOBO show that Brito’s appointment came after a letter Castro sent on October 6 to Cedae’s board of directors.
“The governor (…) indicates that the appointment of Mr. José Ricardo Ferreira de Brito to exercise the role of director of sanitation and major operations should be evaluated,” the document states.
Campello’s appointment the following month came with the creation of the Sustainable Development Department. GLOBO found that Castro’s allies on the Cedae board worked to expedite the creation of the board, which required changes to the company’s bylaws. Campello was approved by the board on November 26. The minutes of the meeting do not mention the author of the appointment letter.
Meanwhile, Pampolha opened a disagreement in the TCE trial to allow the government to proceed with a compensation agreement that contradicted Cedae. On October 3, the day before Brito’s appointment, Cedae’s board announced that it was complying with a government order to compensate concessionaire Águas do Rio for alleged errors in the concession notice, while reiterating that it had no “responsibility for the losses noted.”
It is estimated that the compensation will reach around 900 million reais, in the form of discounts on water sales throughout the concession period. Cedae had refused to accept the bill, saying the notice was designed by BNDES and the Rio government. Without this agreement, Águas do Rio threatened to pass on the loss to consumers, by increasing prices.
Following a complaint from state deputies Luiz Paulo (PSD) and Jari (PSB) to the TCE, councilor José Gomes Graciosa suspended the agreement in mid-October. Graciosa said the state government, by putting pressure on Cedae, had raised “serious doubts about the morality and republican character of the approved agreement” and argued that it saw “no technical document” for an amount of 900 million reais.
When the case resumed on November 12, Pampolha opened a disagreement and voted to authorize the agreement, with Cedae assuming payment. He argued that the TCE’s actions “must be guided by restraint” and not interfere with “the dialogue between those involved in the concession.”
Pampolha’s position prevailed, by four votes to three, in a trial that ended on the 26th. That same day, Cedae’s board of directors met to appoint Campello to the sustainability board.
Pampolha’s two allies left their positions at the Environment Secretariat in early 2024, when the then vice-governor was dismissed from the department. Castro retaliated against Pampolha for joining the MDB and formulating his candidacy for government in 2026. The move contradicted the plans of the then President of the Legislative Assembly, Rodrigo Bacellar (União), Castro’s favorite at the time to succeed him in government.
Brito ended up being transferred to the Sports and Leisure secretariat, commanded by the MDB, and only left his post to take charge of Cedae. Campello, in turn, would end up being appointed to the Government Secretariat in June 2025, after an agreement between Pampolha, Castro and Bacellar, in which the then vice-governor resigned and moved to the TCE. At the time, the agreement already provided for the distribution of positions at Cedae.
Contacted, Pampolha did not return. The Rio government and Cedae said, in a note, that Pampolha’s allies were “evaluated and approved by the company’s board of directors based on their CV and experience in strategic areas of public power.”
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