Brazil’s Senate president says extending Covid CPI to be considered after its term

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco (DEM-MG) said on Tuesday that he would only consider the request to extend the Covid CPI for another 90 days, at the end of the committee’s current term.

The request was made by the vice president of the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee (CPI) Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede-AP), who told the president that the extension request has secured 34 signatures, 7 more than the minimum required.

“It is in these terms, president, that I ask for your approval so that at the appropriate time Your Excellency may read this request and thereby fulfill the request of the Parliamentary Minority in this House,” said Randolfe at the start of Tuesday’s plenary session.

“With no prejudice to Your Excellency’s submitted request to extend the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee, the Presidency considers that this review should be made at the end of the CPI’s 90-day term,” Pacheco replied.

“And it will certainly be done at that time, Senator Randolfe Rodrigues, analyzing the subjective and objective conditions for doing so. But Your Excellency’s question of order is duly registered, taken up by the presidency for timely consideration,” added the Senate president.

Pacheco also used the assessment of opportunity and convenience as an argument when the request for the creation of the CPI was presented. Despite meeting the required signatures, the committee was only created after a Federal Supreme Court (STF) order.

Scheduled to end on August 7, if extended the committee should work until November. At this time, the committee’s investigation is focused on suspicions involving the government of President Jair Bolsonaro.

The CPI has recently focused on Bolsonaro after suspicions arose of irregularities in contracts for the purchase of the Indian Covid-19 Covaxin vaccine. Deputy Luís Miranda (DEM-DF) and his brother, Health Ministry official Luís Ricardo Miranda, said in testimony to the CPI last Friday that they had alerted the president to suspicions in the Covaxin contracting.

Both the president and Precisa Medicamentos, which represents Bharat Biotech, deny any wrongdoing.

After the Miranda brothers’ statements, Randolfe and two other senators lodged a criminal complaint for dereliction of duty against Bolsonaro at the STF.

Despite the government denying any wrongdoing, on Tuesday Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga announced that the portfolio will suspend the Covaxin purchase contract.

Queiroga said the decision was taken following a recommendation by the Office of the Comptroller General, which started an investigation into the suspicions raised about the contract.

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