Federal deputy José Rocha (União-BA) alone allocated 152 million BRL from the secret budget.
The resources were supposed to be shared among deputies of the National Integration Commission of the Chamber, which he chaired at the time, but the deputy ignored the leaders’ agreement and indicated resources for 84 towns in Bahia, his electoral base. The list sent unilaterally by Rocha to the government included only 34 cities outside of Bahia.
The municipality of Coribe, in the state of Bahia, would receive R$9.8 million, or R$700 per capita. With 14,000 inhabitants, the town once had as mayor the father and son of the deputy, and today it is commanded by the cousin of the deputy.
José Rocha is the main whistleblower in the investigation into Federal Court which investigates the irregular attribution of parliamentary amendments in Congress. In a statement to the PF, he accused the deputy Arthur Lira (PP-AL) to use the secret budget for the benefit of Alagoas.
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Documents accessed by the Chronicle, however, show that Rocha himself used the position of commission chairman to benefit his electoral stronghold by using resources that should serve all states. In total, 88 million reais were spent on Bahia alone.
As it was a unilateral decision, without going through the commission or submitting to the leaders, the deputies only discovered the chatter when they realized that their amendments were not paid for and the ministry revealed that it was following José Rocha’s list.
The “circumvention” was identified by parliamentary advisor Mariângela Fialek, known as Tuca, responsible for organizing the amendments spreadsheets. Faced with the revolt, the MP was invited to ask the government to ignore his list. Tuca’s boss at the time, Lira, took the government to court to overturn his colleague’s initiative. Despite this, the MP managed to allocate 53 million BRL, an amount much higher than his other colleagues who, on average, indicated 11 million BRL secret budget in 2024.
Last Friday (12/12), the minister Flavio Dino used José Rocha’s testimony to justify the search and seizure of documents in Fialek’s home and in the room she occupied as president of the Bedroom. No MP was targeted in the action.
Tuca’s role is to receive from party leaders the names of deputies and the amount each will lead, organize the information in spreadsheets and send it to the Ministry of Institutional Relations.
The department, commanded by the minister Gleisi Hoffmann (PT-PR)transmits the list of modifications to the ministries and determines the payments.
The deputies complain that the searches authorized by the minister should also reach the ministry, which is one floor below President Lula’s office, where there are also the lists of those covered by the secret budget and where the order for payment of the amendments comes from.
MP says he is unaware of secret budget list
Contacted, MP José Rocha questioned the integrity of the documents to which the chronicle had access and denied having used his position as president of the Integration Commission to assign amendments in his favor.
José Rocha maintains that the attempt to send 152 million reais is an “invention of those who are at fault in the civil registry”.
Regarding the amounts allocated to the State of Bahia and the Municipality of Coribe, he denied any responsibility and declared that he “did not have the competence” to distribute the commission’s amendments because “all of them were ordered by the President of the House, Arthur Lira.”
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