Senator Veneziano Vital do Rêgo of the MDB, who represents Paraíba, steered R$ 210 million in budget amendments to the widening of the BR-230 highway in his state. Companies owned by relatives and partners of two aides who passed through his office are carrying out part of the works, and one of the two still works for him. The findings were published on Tuesday by Folha de S.Paulo, based on documents obtained by the newspaper, and no other outlet has independently confirmed them so far.

Two consortia run the project: one covers a stretch in Campina Grande, Paraíba's second-largest city, the other a route in Cabedelo, on the coast. According to Folha, both subcontracted Comtech, later replaced by Com Infraestrutura e Mineração, and Selecta Construções. When the deal was signed, Comtech had Rodrigo Neves as a partner. He worked in Veneziano's office until 2017. Com Infraestrutura e Mineração belongs to a former business partner of his, and Selecta to a brother-in-law. Rodrigo's brother, Marcelo Neves, has worked in the senator's office since 2019.

How the money reached the works

Of the total, R$ 160 million came through rapporteur amendments Veneziano indicated in the 2023 federal budget, a channel in which the budget's rapporteur distributes funds, and R$ 50 million from the Senate Infrastructure Committee, Folha reports. The works began in 2017, were suspended the following year and resumed in 2023, after the Transport Ministry signed a new service order funded by the Transition PEC, a constitutional amendment. Announcing the resumption on the Senate floor in September 2023, the senator described how he sought money from the 2023 budget's lead rapporteur, then senator Marcelo Castro:

"We approved R$ 50 million in the Infrastructure Committee, and I went to Senator Marcelo Castro [...] and the senator, seeing the importance of the BR-230, added another R$ 83 million, making R$ 127 million for the 31 kilometers."

In the same session, Veneziano said he expected the works to be finished in 2026 and noted the highway serves Campina Grande, a city of 415,000 people, and a surrounding region of about 1 million.

The senator's response

In a statement, Veneziano confirmed sending the amendments and said his role went no further. Decisions on execution, he argued, belong elsewhere:

"The senator does not take part in bidding, does not choose companies, does not appoint subcontractors, does not authorize payments and does not interfere in contract oversight. Those duties belong exclusively to the administrative structures responsible for executing the works."

Trying to connect the amendments with the subcontracted companies, the statement says, "means deliberately confusing parliamentary action with administrative and business acts of management in which the senator takes no part." On the former aide, it says past professional ties "likewise do not mean participation, influence or responsibility of the senator" over third parties' later business activities.

The report arrives in the middle of Veneziano's campaign for reelection to the Senate in October's elections. In an interview with the news site TH+ on August 25, he had presented about R$ 2.3 billion secured for Paraíba as the balance of his term, including R$ 267 million for the BR-230.