By Gram Slattery and Ricardo Brito
RIO DE JANEIRO, 25 September (Reuters) – When patients with COVID-19 flooded Rio de Janeiro’s public fitness formula from early April to May, Dr. Pedro Archer was discovered making heartbreaking decisions.
People who have trouble breathing want fans, he says, but there are enough for everyone; those with a low chance of recovery were ignored.
“At the time, it was like that,” said Archer, a city hospital surgeon in Rio de Janeiro, a city of 6. 7 million people anchored in a state of the same name. “Sometimes I thirst them just so they can hagan. no it. In the end, they would die. “
Some of these deaths, according to state and federal prosecutors, may have been prevented, claiming that senior officials here sought to pocket up to R$400 million ($72. 2 million) through bribery schemes that led to inflated state contracts with pandemic allies. The agreements, they said, included three contracts for every 1,000 fans, maximum of whom never came.
Rio State Health Secretary Edmar Santos was arrested on July 10 and charged with corruption in connection with the contracts. A lawyer for Santos did not respond to a request for comment. Court documents ready through federal investigators exposing the alleged scams, which were reviewed via Reuters. He is now a witness cooperating with the investigation, according to the documents.
On the other hand, a federal ruling suspended his duties on August 28, and Rio State Governor Wilson Witzel feared he would interfere with the investigations. Witzel also faces prosecution for alleged corruption.
He denied wrong acting in a Reuters. Deputy Governor Claudio Castro, who succeeded Witzel in August, did not respond to a request for comment.
Latin America has been greatly affected by the pandemic, with more than 8. 9 million cases of coronavirus as of September 24, according to a Reuters count. Brazil alone recorded more than 139,000 COVID-19 deaths, only the United States.
If Rio were a country, its coronavirus-consistent mortality rate would be the worst in the world, according to a Reuters estimate of Johns Hopkins University’s knowledge. More than 10,000 people died by COVID-19 in this city of sea and sand postcard. , and more than 18,000 state-round.
The region’s reaction to the pandemic has been hampered by several factors, according to experts, that add poverty and overcrowded urban living conditions. Some leaders, adding Brazil’s right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro, have downplayed the severity of the pandemic.
But the virus has been helped by greed.
Like Brazil, researchers from Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru also claimed that the wallet was filled with pandemic-related transplant projects.
In documents detailing the alleged scams in Rio, Brazilian prosecutors describe a number of interdependent criminal companies, in which emergency contracts for masks, coronavirus tests, even hand gel were allegedly manipulated.
Reuters has reviewed a lot of pages of prosecutors’ accusations, many of which are confidential and have not been reported in the past; and interviewed more than a dozen fitness professionals and smart government experts who condemned the opportunism that they said exacerbated the coronavirus anguish in Rio.
“The pandemic has allowed governments to spend significant resources very temporarily, while internal controls have calmed down due to urgency,” said Guilherme France, Director of Studies at Transparency International in Brazil. “This ended up creating the best typhoon for corruption. “
A witzel representative said the suspended governor had tightened internal controls within the Rio state government, adding that he had ignored many officials accused of “irregularities” in his tenure.
GHOST HOSPITALS
The pandemic reaction of the state of Rio required seven cash hospitals to treat patients with COVID-19. State Ministry of Fitness officials, known as SES, awarded contracts worth R$836 million ($151 million) to a non-profit fitness organization called IABAS for the construction of the structures, which were due to open until April 30. Only two have opened so far, one in mid-May, the other in June due, long after the initial increase in COVID-19.
At the end of July, when the pandemic was planted in Rio, one of those working-class structures, the city of Sao Gonoalo, was dismantled amid the shortage of patients, and all that remains is a giant field, stripped of grass and planted with rubble.
The IABAS contracts are part of an alleged bribery fraud led by Mario Peixoto, a local contractor arrested in May for allegedly defrauding the Rio state’s fitness formula. public fitness contracts, adding cash hospitals.
Peixoto’s lawyers said he is innocent and did not participate in the cash hospital agreement. Your trial is ongoing.
Federal prosecutors have not filed charges against IABAS. But in confidential court documents they filed asking for a sentence to authorize the arrest of more suspects, they said there was no “place in doubt” that IABAS’ winning offer was contaminated by corruption. Among the irregularities cited through prosecutors: IABAS drafted its winning proposal before SES requested offers.
IABAS told Reuters that it won hospital contracts by offering the lowest price. He said SES replaced the agreement, slowing down construction. IABAS said that six of the seven structures were completed or nearly completed in early June, when the state of Rio canceled its contract and took control of all allocation sites.
In a Reuters statement, SES questioned the characterization of IABAS’ progress and said that 4 of the seven cash hospitals were far from complete when the state took over.
SES declined to comment on IABAS’ assertion that the Ministry of Health modified the structure agreement. SES said it had stored more than 500 million reais ($90. 3 million) by postponing invoices to IABAS following corruption allegations made through prosecutors. cooperating with the investigation.
MISSING FANS
Prosecutors say the Rio state government also hastened ventilation contracts to 3 that had little or no applicable experience.
According to court documents summarizing prosecutors’ conclusions, Rio awarded a contract worth 68 million reais ($ 12. 3 million) on March 21 to a little-known company, Arc Fontoura, to supply 400 enthusiasts for prompt delivery. . thinks that the Rio Health Ministry has paid almost a 200% increase in the market price.
Arc Fontoura had not entered into a contract with the state in the past, and tax documents indicated that the company’s annual revenue did not exceed 4. 8 million reais ($870,000), prosecutors said. a small apartment in a working-class community of the city.
When Rio won a small group of corporate enthusiasts in late March, hospital staff complained to SES that the machines lacked key components, prosecutors said in court documents that summarize their findings, which is not transparent from documents in which the hospital’s fitness staff were located.
Arc Fontoura responded to phone calls or emails and obtained Reuters at his indexed address.
On 1 April, SES awarded contracts totaling 116 million reais ($20. 9 million) to two other corporations, MHS Produtos e Servicos and A2A Comercio, for the source of three hundred enthusiasts each.
Rio’s prosecutors temporarily learned irregularities, according to court documents, beginning with the timing of corporate offerings. Little-known corporations submitted their proposals within an hour of the opening of the tender through SES, which was not announced in advance, a sign that corporations had been notified, prosecutors said.
On May 8, the Rio State Department of Health publicly stated that of the 1,000 enthusiasts it had requested, only 52 had been delivered, all from Arc Fontoura. SES said in early May that it had canceled its contract with A2A due to the company’s “inability to deliver” enthusiasts. A2A responded to requests for comment.
MHS owner Glauco Guerra has denied any irregularities. He said in an email that his company has great pleasure in offering federal agencies. He said he submitted his bid a day after the bidding opened, not within a few hours, as prosecutors alleged. Guerra said SES entered his application documents into his computer formula in a way that led prosecutors to misread the schedule.
He claimed that 97 enthusiasts had been handed over to SES on June 6 and that the firm canceled the contract for the rest. State prosecutors showed in public documents served on Reuters that 97 enthusiasts ordered by MHS had arrived at a Rio airport in early June.
SES told Reuters in a statement that all contracts signed “during the pandemic are being audited and reviewed,” adding that any irregularities will be sanctioned. The branch declined to comment on MHS’s statement that its tender documents had been misrepresented in the SES system. raising ongoing investigations into the matter.
Archer, the surgeon, says his delight in the fight against COVID-19 without enough enthusiasts has left him bitter.
At the height of the pandemic in April and May, he said that up to 30 patients under his care were waiting for the machines, many were too volatile to move around and eventually died, he said.
He wondered how many patients may have been saved, how much has corruption killed?
“It’s very difficult to settle for things you know are wrong,” Archer said.
(Report by Gram Slattery in Rio de Janeiro and Ricardo Brito in Brasilia; Additional report via Rodrigo Viga Gaier in Rio de Janeiro; edited through Stephen Eisenhammer and Marla Dickerson)
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