Inside the building of the Municipal Development Institute (Infom) a few weeks ago, notes containing threats to the authorities of the entity appeared. Karin Slowing, president of the board of directors of the institute, describes how the events occurred and what could have been the cause.
What were the events like on the day you reported the threats?
On Thursday, June 27, I was on my way because everything happened very early. When the manager called me and told me that we had a very urgent situation, he didn’t know that I was near the office. He told me that we had received threats.
What form did the threats take?
Because of the shape of the building, there are no attached stairs. So, in the staircase that connects the seven levels of the building, I think there were between six and seven handwritten letters scattered around.
They were on normal bond paper, handwritten. With foul language and explicit death threats directed specifically at me, not by name, but by position, that was interesting.
It was because of charges against the manager, me, the assistant manager and the director of human resources.
The manager came very early. He estimates that he came in around seven in the morning and went up to the office. Half an hour later he was notified that the notes had just been placed on the steps and that there were people reading them.
When I entered Infom, the notes were no longer on the stands. The head of security had ordered them to remove the notes.
Was a complaint filed?
Yes, at about eight o’clock I called the president who was at the National Council for Urban and Rural Development. At eleven o’clock in the morning he came to Infom, the Specialized Division for Criminal Investigation (DEIC) conducted the investigation and the next day the manager went to the Public Prosecutor’s Office to file the complaint.
Was security requested from the Ministry of the Interior?
We asked the Ministry of the Interior to support us in reinforcing perimeter security, first of all in the area because it is a dangerous sector in terms of robberies, but also in strengthening security at the entrance to the building.
In the end, they are not threats to us, it is the entire staff of Infom at the central plant that is at risk.
And we ask that a vulnerability analysis be carried out to see how much more security needs to be introduced, both in terms of personal security and institutional security. We are at that stage.
Did any other similar events occur before the messages you received?
A few weeks earlier, I came to receive a mayor. When we entered the office, there was a large stain of dust at the entrance to the office, and it seemed strange because that was on Monday when she came, and on Friday the office had been closed, and I had not come over the weekend.
When I was leaving to say goodbye to the mayor in the waiting room of the office, we noticed that they had white hand marks, like those of a man. I called the head of security, they came to check the office and there were white marks on the table as well.
There was nothing else, nothing had been lost, everything was in order, but obviously someone had entered the office. The door to the management office was also half open and it didn’t have to be that way, because it has to be closed properly.
We suspect that someone entered the office and simply left a notice that they had entered. We reported it to the MP, filed a complaint and went to confirm it.
Do you have any hypotheses about decisions that may have been made that may have triggered that behavior?
One of the main problems we had was overstaffing. So we had to lay off quite a lot of staff. There were around sixty people, a little more. Most of them were hired under 029 and above all, it was not done arbitrarily.
The manager has been conducting a process of evaluating the functioning of the units and who works there, and decisions about personnel who were not really contributing much to the institution were not made arbitrarily.
Obviously, it is a decision, always the most difficult of all in an institution, and we think that this is one of the things that could be behind it. This year, what we are doing is stabilising the budget to operate the basic services and trying to solve things so that next year, if the budget is approved in Congress, we can invest.
Was there any movement in the security personnel?
The previous head of security from the previous government was replaced, a new head came in and was also threatened.
How have you strengthened security while the vulnerability analysis is being completed?
Now we have a security guard who has to accompany visitors who come to the office. The unit – from the Ministry of the Interior – that is dedicated to guarding officials was busy, the guards were already assigned to deputies, all of which has been made public now, so they were not available.
We are managing guards with the unit that guards public buildings of the National Civil Police. We have already requested it, we are waiting for the government to assign us at least a small unit.
Yes, we want to strengthen our security, but we need private security, but right now we cannot do it. The Secretariat of Administrative and Security Affairs of the Presidency (SAAS) has also guided us in some aspects.
The entrance to the building was also strengthened with some measures, because those who go to the offices of the National Association of Municipalities enter through the same door.
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