RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Allegations that two evangelical pastors have used their influence with Brazil’s Education Ministry to steer federal funding to friends — and in at least one case seek a bribe — are causing a new election-year controversy for the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.
Major Brazilian news media published a series of stories and leaked audio recordings this week alleging that two pastors serving as unofficial advisers to the ministry were favoring municipalities run by their allies.
One of the pastors, the Rev. Arilton Moura, even asked for a kilogram of gold in addition to about $3,000 in exchange for funding of schools and nurseries, according to Mayor Gilberto Braga of the city of Luis Domingues, as quoted Wednesday by the newspaper Estado de S.Paulo.
The newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported this week that Education Minister Milton Ribeiro appeared to implicate Bolsonaro — who has tried to ally himself with evangelicals — in favoring the pastors by urging help for cities they back.
The newspaper posted a recording of Ribeiro telling several mayors that the government prioritized municipalities whose requests are backed by Moura and and the Rev. Gilmar Santos. Both pastors also attended the meeting, the newspaper reported.
“My priority is to first serve the municipalities that need it most and, secondly, to serve all those who are friends of Gilmar,” the voice identified as Ribeiro’s said in the recording. He added that this was “a special request of the president of the Republic.”
Neither the president’s press office nor the Education Ministry responded to requests for comment.
Ribeiro, himself a Presbyterian minister, acknowledged having met with the pastors and local mayors on several occasions and at the request of Bolsonaro, but he denied any wrongdoing in a Wednesday interview with CNN Brazil.
“I have neither the condition nor the competence to allocate anything because the criteria at the (ministry) are eminently technical,” Ribeiro said. “I may have sympathy for some pastor, or some mayor he brings along, but if he doesn’t reach that technical profile, nothing gets done.”
Ribeiro added that last year he asked the Office of the Comptroller General, the government’s anticorruption agency, to investigate possible malpractice inside the ministry.
The ministry did not respond to requests for contact information for the two pastors. Silva’s church in the state of Goias also did not respond to a request for comment and it was not immediately possible to locate Moura.
