Effective in office by President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the new Minister of Education, Victor Godoy Veiga, told the CNN that it does not intend to make changes in the first echelon of the MEC. In other words, Veiga will keep Milton Ribeiro’s team in the secretariats and municipalities linked to the portfolio.
Among the names that should remain in the current post is that of the president of the FNDE (National Fund for the Development of Education), Marcelo Lopes da Ponte. The body is at the center of the MEC’s suspicions of corruption, which resulted in Ribeiro’s departure from the portfolio.
Today, the body that executes MEC’s educational policies and transfers resources to municipalities and states is under the command of sponsors from the so-called Centrão. Ponte was chief of staff of the Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira.
Veiga also told CNN who, now as a de facto minister, reiterates the commitments he assumed in a letter when he was appointed interim at the MEC. In the document, released by him on social media on March 30, Veiga stated that he would act “with rigor to increase mechanisms of transparency and integrity in the application of educational resources, including collaborating with investigation and control bodies”.
A career server at the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU), Veiga headed the CGU department that centralizes inspections at the MEC. He assumed the executive secretary of the portfolio in July 2020 with the aim of assisting the then minister Milton Ribeiro in the controls of the ministry, especially the FNDE.
Source: CNN Brasil
