Anshika Tiwari –
President Jair Bolsonaro has been accused of being involved in a scheme to skim salaries of his aides and to have misused public funds as a lawmaker, Universo Online or UOL, a Brazilian web services company reported.
The scheme, locally known as rachadinha, involves hiring close associates as employees and then receiving a cut of their public salaries back from them.
The reported story is based on audio recordings of Bolsonaro’s former sister-in-law, Andrea Siqueira Valle, provided by a source.
In one audio recording, Andrea Siqueira Valle explains that her brother, Andre Siqueira, who was also on Bolsonaro’s payroll, was fired for refusing to hand back the agreed amount to the now-president.
“André had a lot of trouble because he never returned the right money that had to be returned,” she says on the recording.
“Eventually, Jair said … ‘Enough. You can get rid of him because he never gives me the right amount of money.'”
However, the legitimacy of the recordings or the information therein is not yet confirmed. Andrea Siqueira refused to comment.
This is the first instance of the President being directly involved in a rachadinha scheme, despite numerous awkward questions about his role in Flavio Bolsonaro’s alleged racket in Rio. State prosecutors of Rio de Janeiro have formally pressed charges against federal Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, who is also the president’s eldest son, over his alleged participation in a similar racket when he was a state lawmaker.
A lawyer representing Bolsonaro contacted by UOL denied any illegalities.
However since the Brazilian law does not allow a sitting president to be charged for any crime committed before taking power, prosecutors would need to wait until the president vacates the office, in order to bring charges.
The president is already facing investigation in connection with irregularities in procuring Covid 19 vaccines.