During the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the Companhia de Entrepostos e Armazéns Gerais de São Paulo (Ceagesp) was largely militarized. Of the 26 commissioned positions for employees not linked to the Public Administration available at the Company, 22 were occupied by military police officers.
The appointments took place during the presidency of reserve colonel Ricardo Nascimento de Mello Araújo, former commander of the Rondas Ostensivas Tobias de Aguiar (Rota) troop, appointed to the position by Bolsonaro on October 23, 2020. Brazil in fact via the Access to Information Law (LAI).
Of the 22 military police officers, eight are assigned to the presidential office, divided between the positions of executive assistant and technical advisor. All resigned with Mello Araújo on January 6 of this year. The current presidency is temporarily occupied by Hamilton Ribeiro Mota, former mayor of Jacareí, who is awaiting the definitive name, which will be chosen by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).
:: Paulo Teixeira will ask that Ceagesp and CeasaMinas be removed from the privatization plan ::
In addition to the PMs, Mello Araújo appointed the former Secretary of Public Security of São Paulo, Antônio Ferreira Pinto, to the position of director of operations, with a salary of R$ 30,530. The hiring took place on January 4, 2021, two months after the former commander of Rota took over as president of Ceagesp.
Of the 23 police officers named at Ceagesp, including Colonel Ricardo Nascimento de Mello Araújo, 19 are from the reserve and four are no longer on the staff of the Military Police of the State of São Paulo.
Executive assistant to the Presidency, Renato Nobile is a former Rota police officer and, in 2019, after a military police sergeant in uniform proposed to his boyfriend, he published a text on his profile making threats to the groom.
“Disgraceful, scoundrel and bastard. Dishonor for my corporation. This one had to die in a stone”, said Nobile, the first military police officer promoted to the position at Ceagesp by Mello Araújo, on November 3, 2020, with a salary of R$ 9,675 .
Check out at the end of the report the list of all military police officers appointed at Ceagep by former President Mello Araújo between November 3, 2020 and May 12, 2022.
the presidency
Bolsonaro surprised when he announced that Mello Araújo as president of Ceagesp. Without any relationship, experience or technical knowledge about the warehouse, the former Commander of Rota started to command a complex gear of 585 workers in his direct administration and which also houses 2,148 wholesale licensees, 249 retail licensees, 362 street vendors and 3,499 loaders autonomous.
In his inaugural speech, Mello Araújo made a specific promise. “This large company of international recognition, with the second largest financial turnover in the country, second only to the Stock Exchange, is going to be privatized”, stated the former commander of Rota.
Almost three years later, on January 19 of this year, Paulo Teixeira, Minister of Agrarian Development (MDA), the portfolio that now houses Ceagesp, announced that the warehouse will leave the National Privatization Plan, where it had been since 2019.
Before Ceagesp, Mello Araújo had already been highlighted in the press, not exactly for his good services as a police officer. In an interview with the portal UOLin 2017, the former commander of Rota stated that he recommended that his subordinates approach citizens from the periphery and wealthy neighborhoods in a different way.
“It’s a different reality. There are different people who pass through there. The way he (the police) approach has to be different. If he is going to approach a person on the outskirts in the same way he is going to approach a person here in Jardins, he will have difficulty. He will not be respected”, said Mello Araújo.
“In the same way, if I put a police officer from the periphery to deal with, speak in the same way, with the same language that a person from the periphery speaks here in Jardins, he may be being rude to a person from Jardins who is there, walking “, concluded the former president of Ceagesp.
The policeman and the manager
The climate of fear frequented Ceagesp’s corridors and kiosks during the period of Mello Araújo’s presidency. Workers reported to Brazil in fact that the military police were armed at the headquarters of the warehouse, in Vila Leopoldina, west of São Paulo, and that they threatened those who disagreed with the management of the former commander of Rota.
One of the episodes of violence took place on February 4, 2022, when Mello Araújo allegedly invaded the headquarters of the Union Workers in Food Supply Centers of the State of São Paulo (Sindbast), which has been inside Ceagesp since 1986, with “armed security guards who intimidated union officials and directors.”
The incident, confirmed to the Brazil in fact by a union worker, was exposed on the entity’s website. “In the invasion, the president provoked crowds and did not wear masks. When questioned about this posture, he said he needed to speak and that the mask hindered him, demonstrating ignorance regarding equipment to prevent the pandemic, being, in itself, a vector of propagation of the virus.”
Since August 2021, Mello Araújo has been trying to expel unionists from headquarters. In a note of repudiation of the measure, signed by six trade union centrals and by the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), the former Rota commander’s attempt to force the dismissal of a worker with the use of violence became public.
“We have been fighting practically daily battles against the criminal authoritarianism of the colonel, current president of Ceagesp. We cite, for example, the persecution that Ceagesp workers have been suffering, even being forced to resign – under armed and violent coercion – in clear affront to the norms approved by the International Labor Organization (ILO) as in the case of three workers, including a union leader, who were accused, with forged ‘evidence’ and already denied, of theft of electricity”, disclosed the centrals.
In an interview with Newspaper, in August 2021, the president of Sindbast, Enilson Simões de Moura, the Alemão, stated that he was threatened with death by Ceagesp military police. O Brazil in fact sought the union leader to confirm the information, but he preferred not to comment and said that the process is in court, running in secrecy.
History
Ceagesp was created in 1969 by the government of São Paulo, but became controlled by the Union in 1997, during the administration of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. It is currently linked to the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture. The company is the largest supply center in Latin America.
Today, Ceagesp receives, at the São Paulo Terminal Terminal (ETSP), an average of 8,280 tons per day of fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, among other products, produced in Brazil and abroad.
Ceagesp’s annual revenue has grown in the last decade. In 2012, the company earned R$80 million, of which R$79.9 million in services provided and R$62,000 in products sold.
In 2022, revenue was BRL 152 million, divided into BRL 1.3 million in product sales and BRL 150 million in services provided, according to information provided by Ceagesp.
Other side
The Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture stated, in a note, that “the complaints will be investigated by the competent authorities and those responsible punished in accordance with the law.” Also according to the folder, the current government “values work relations based on respect and appreciation of male and female workers.”
Also in a note, Ceagesp responded. “The previous management ended on January 6, 2023, after the collective resignation of the board and the team of Coronel Mello Araujo. Since January 1, 2023, after publication of Decree No. 11.338, by the Federal Government, CEAGESP became part of structure of the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture (MDA). Previously, it was linked to the Ministry of Economy. On an interim basis, on January 9, 2023, Mr. Hamilton Ribeiro Mota was officially appointed as CEO of Companhia de Entrepostos e Armazéns Gerais of São Paulo (CEAGESP).”
All 22 military police named in Ceagesp:
Name: Renato Nobile
Position: Executive Assistant to the President
Salary: BRL 9,675
Name: Rodrigo Manzzoni de Oliveira
Position: Manager of the Engineering and Maintenance Department
Salary: BRL 23,926
Name: Daniel Lakes
Position: Manager of the Interior Warehouse Department
Salary: BRL 23,926
Name: Carlos Augusto Almeida da Silva
Position: Manager of the Capital Warehouse Department
Salary: BRL 23,926
Glauco Tsuneimatu
Administrative and financial director
Salary: BRL 30,530
Name: Rinaldo Matias da Silva
Position: Executive Assistant to the President
Salary: BRL 15,347
Name: Laudo Natel Iasulaitis
Position: Technical Advisor to the Presidency
Salary: BRL 15,347
Name: Francisco Jose Deamo
Position: Executive Assistant to the President
Salary: BRL 9,675
Name: Jose Issa Junior
Position: Executive Assistant to the President
Salary: BRL 9,675
Nome: Lauriano Elias Cezario
Position: Executive Assistant to the President
Salary: BRL 7,682
Name: Jorge Ferreira de Lima
Position: Executive Assistant to the President
Salary: BRL 6,100
Name: Edson Carlos da Silva
Position: Executive Assistant to the Board of Directors
Salary: BRL 7,682
Name: Sergio Duraes
Position: Executive Assistant to the Board of Directors
Salary: BRL 7,682
Name: Sandro Keler Maronezi
Position: Manager of the São Paulo Fish Warehouse
Salary: BRL 10,908
Name: Carlos Tenorio de Almeda
Position: Coordinator of the Coordination of Integrity, Risks and Compliance
Salary: BRL 15,351
Name: Alessandro Augusto Mendes Barreiro
Position: Assistant to the Integrity, Risks and Compliance Coordination
Salary: BRL 7,682
Name: Larissa Cristina Garcia Vogel
Position: Assistant to the Integrity, Risks and Compliance Coordination
Salary: BRL 7,682
Name: Idalmo Brugnoli
Position: Executive Assistant to the President
Salary: BRL 7,682
Name: José Carlos de Lima
Position: Technical Assistant to the Board
Salary: BRL 12,185
Name: Edson Santos
Position: Executive Assistant to the President
Salary: BRL 6,100
Name: Claudio Pereira Silva
Position: Technical Assistant to the Administrative and Financial Board
Salary: BRL 6,100
Name: Carlos Alves de Almeida
Position: Technical Assistant to the Operational Board
Salary: BRL 6,100
Editing: Thalita Pires
