The session of the Mixed Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPMI) of the National Social Security Institute (INSS), scheduled for this Monday afternoon (16), was cancelled.
The decision came after Minister André Mendonça, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), released Aristides Veras dos Santos, former president of the National Confederation of Rural Workers, Farmers and Family Farmers (Contag), from the obligation to appear before the collegiate.
The hearing was scheduled for 4pm this Monday. Aristides had been summoned through a request approved by parliamentarians, which would make his presence mandatory.
When appealing to the STF, the defense of the former president of Contag argued that the businessman has the constitutional right not to produce evidence against himself and requested that he be excused from appearing. Alternatively, if he chose to give a statement, he asked that broad access to evidence and the right to answer only the questions he considered appropriate be guaranteed.
In the decision, Mendonça accepted the defense’s arguments and removed the mandatory attendance, transforming the summons into an optional one and leaving it up to the businessman to decide whether or not to attend the CPMI.
Contag is among the entities investigated by the Federal Police in the billion-dollar scheme of undue discounts on benefits for INSS retirees and pensioners.
According to data from the Federal Police, the confederation is suspected of having embezzled around R$2 billion from retirees between January 2019 and March 2024.
The entity, in turn, denies irregularities and states that it informed the INSS, on two occasions, of the existence of undue discounts and abusive practices against rural retirees and pensioners.
