Brasília, October 20, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The misappropriation of R$ 17.7 million in Sudene (Superintendency for Northeast Development) funds by a company that never existed, in Horizonte, Ceará, and the use of phoney sales slips by the municipal government of Confresa, Mato Grosso, to try to prove R$ 139 thousand in expenses, are some of the irregularities discovered by the Federal Controller's Office in the 50 municipalities examined in August as part of the Inspection Program, in which a public lottery determines which municipalities will be examined. These results were announced on Friday (17) by the Minister of Transparency and Control, Waldir Pires, who pointed out that, up to now, 181 municipalities have been inspected, and the application of nearly R$ 1 billion in federal resources has been checked.

According to the Minister, of the 50 municipalities examined in August, 33 evidenced irregularities with varying degrees of severity; 15 were guilty of merely formal errors; and 2 - Espigão do Alto Iguaçu, in Paraná, and Iepê, in São Paulo - were free of problems involving the application of federal resources by municipal administrations.

Minister Pires reaffirmed that the "program is becoming more solid and is increasingly fulfilling its role of attracting participation by society, with the support of the press, in the exercise of controlling the application of public resources." (DAS)