Mayor of the interior of MA accused of diverting R$2.5 million from the education of young people and adults

The head judge of the 3rd Federal Civil Court of Maranhão, Clodomir Sebastião Reis, blocked R$ 2.5 million from the specific account of the Fund for Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and Valorization of Education Professionals (FUNDEB) in the municipality of São Bernardo, at the request of the Federal Public Ministry. The city is governed by Igor Carvalho (PDT). The decision is a response to fraud discovered in data from the Youth and Adult Education (EJA) program.

According to the MPF, the municipality of Maranhão reported in the School Census that there were 6,048 enrolled in the EJA program in 2023. However, only 6.6% of this total regularly attends EJA. “False data was used to receive resources”, including deceased students, students from other states and schools that were no longer in operation.

According to the sentence, the municipality of São Bernardo unduly received more than R$ 142 million from FUNDEB between January 2018 and February 2024. Of the R$ 10,904,112.53 in transfer, R$ 5,159,348.00 would be undue , according to the MPF.

In March, the municipality has already received a total of R$2,138,215.22 and still has R$8,765,897.31 to receive. However, the judge decided to block R$2.5 million so as not to overburden the municipality.

In addition to the blockade, the federal judge also ordered the National Education Development Fund to consider the number of enrollments in the EJA modality estimated by the CGU for the year 2023 (361 students) in the calculation of FUNDEB resources to be transferred to the municipality of São Bernardo from April 2024.

A conciliation hearing is scheduled for April 12th. The case was revealed in January this year, when a report by Fantástico, from Rede Globo, showed a fraud scheme in EJA registrations discovered by the Court of Auditors of the State of Maranhão. (From the Imirante)