Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Teresopolis, Brazil —
When the avalanche of mud swept through Vanessa Silva’s neighborhood, it punched out the front wall of her house and poured right into her kitchen and bathroom.
Six months later, the mess of brick, twisted metal and dirt is still there. Silva and her family are still camping with friends, while their suffering turns into rage over allegations that money for their recovery from Brazil’s worst disaster in a century has been stolen.
Even in a country used to money-for-favors scandals and politicians caught on videotape stuffing their pockets with bundles of cash, the news has been shocking. The torrential January rains that struck the mountains north of Rio de Janeiro killed 918 people. Another 322 were never found and are presumed dead. Bodies are still buried under debris. About 32,000 people are still without permanent homes.
And now the city of Teresopolis, where whole neighborhoods are still ravaged and covered in mud, has had its aid funds blocked as three separate investigations unfold: one into possible misuse of federal reconstruction funds, another into allegations of environmental lawbreaking, a third into claims of illegalities in the contracting of firms to work on the cleanup effort.
The details of the investigations, including the names of those involved, are kept secret as a matter of policy. But Silva has heard enough to be outraged. “It’s like these politicians are laughing at us, taking advantage of us when we’ve been brought to our knees,” she says.
Federal officials poured more than $100 million into the area in the weeks after the landslides. The money was supposed to pay for cleanup, repair of roads and power lines and rehousing of victims.
Some work was done in Teresopolis: A washed-out bridge was restored. City workers asphalted a road whose cobblestones had been swept away. A steep embankment has been cemented over to protect houses below.
But government investigators say they found little record of how the funds were spent. They say many companies had no signed contracts, and schedules showed several companies were slated to be in the same place, doing the same job. There were no records of how much work was done. The auditors gave city officials until Monday to explain how the money was spent and put a hold on further funds.
Categories: Brazil