Brazil’s Postal Service to be probed for corruption

The Brazilian government on Monday ordered a thorough investigation of the country’s postal service in the face of media reports of a corruption plot involving lawmaker and Labor Party leader Roberto Jefferson.
The Communications Ministry, which oversees the post office, announced that it had removed from the service’s head of contracting and administration, Mauricio Marinho, who was accused by the magazine Vega of engaging in corruption in complicity with Jefferson.
The weekly reported that Marinho and Jefferson saw to it that certain firms won bids for various contracts offered via the postal service and other public entities.
The speaker of the lower house of Congress, Severino Cavalcanti, said that he would examine the complaints against Jefferson and determine if an impeachment process against him would be opened, a measure which might result in the lawmaker being expelled from the legislature.
“If they aren’t complaints brought to destroy someone, Congress will sanction whom it must sanction and will be in the forefront of the fight against corruption,” Cavalcanti told journalists.
Last week, Veja published pictures from a secret videotape, calling its report “Videotape of corruption in Brasilia: The incredible tape of money going from the hands of the corrupter into the pocket of the corrupt.”
In the video obtained by the magazine, Marinho is seen receiving money from two unidentified businessmen who wanted to get onto the official lists of the postal service’s computer equipment suppliers.
Marinho tells the men that it is “very easy” to get on the list, as well as to rig the contract bidding, since he is “covered” by Jefferson, who so far has made no comment on the matter, although he has said that on Tuesday, May 17, he would do so in Congress.
The Labor Party, which forms the legislative foundation of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government, issued a brief statement in which it said only that it was not involved in any corruption.