State-owned companies are pushing for the release of new contracts without tendering, as stipulated by the health framework
BRASILIA – The Minister of Civil House, Rui Costathe government said Lula can sign the regulatory decree of the legal framework of the next week sanitationwhich should replace the rules drawn up by the government Bolsonaro. The Civil House and the Ministry of Cities has opened a negotiating table between private and state companies to try to reach an agreement on the changes to the rules. Rui Costa said he has given until this Friday the 10th for the associations to reach a consensus. If there is no agreement, the government will arbitrate and decide, the minister said.
“Next week we will restrict the decree to see if it is already able to sign. We want to unlock investments, there is a lot of anticipation for this new decree,” said the minister.
As already shown by Stadium/Broadcast, the companies have not yet reached a consensus on what to do with approximately 560 irregular state managements, in which either there is no contract for sanitation or the instrument has expired. Since the law prohibits new contracts concluded directly between state-owned companies and municipalities, private companies understand that there is no way for state-owned companies to bail out these deals by fiat.
The state-owned companies say that the veto tool would not be used, but a “service provision” contract. The legal framework, however, requires tenders for new contracts, which experts and private companies do not want to change.
When asked about these contracts, the minister said that, last Friday, the government will verify the points of agreement and disagreement in the negotiations. “We will see what is in the decree, and what is not. And then, our first initiative will be to publish the decree of what is convenient”, he said, without however anticipating what the government’s position will be on these irregular contracts. . However, the minister did not rule out the possibility that the government could intervene to change the regulatory framework on sanitation services. If this option is eventually adopted, Costa said, the Civil House will involve Parliament before sending any measures.
“Whatever changes to the law are needed, we should continue to discuss a little more and possibly involve Parliament in this debate before sending anything. First of all, immediately, we want to change the decree to unblock investments. In the decree, which in the end will not consensus, the government will arbitrate,” the minister said.
The Civil House and the Ministry of Cities have already defined some issues that will be addressed in the decree, on which there is already consensus. One of these is overturning the 25 percent limit for state sanitation closures public-private partnerships (PPPs). The goal, according to the minister, is to stimulate the attraction of private investments.
“Because the decrees (of the Bolsonaro government), contrary to what was intended, have limited and paralyzed investments, including private ones. PPP, concession, sub-concession, because in this area there are several possible models. And the decrees limited to a single model, full concession. We are making it more flexible to open to all models, PPP, full concession, sub-concession, partial concession, regional concession. The country is continental, the realities are different. What is true for a city in the Southeast, does not apply to the Northeast, Center-West. The worst model is the one that wants to freeze. It’s not worth putting on a straitjacket,” said Costa, according to whom the rules of the decree in force prevented him, as governor of Bahia, from structuring a PPP to the state.
grants
The minister also criticized the use and amount of grant resources raised by states that made sanitation concessions. In the case of the auction of Give in, in Rio de Janeiro, there have been almost R$ 23 billion in subsidies, an amount that, for Costa, generates dysfunctions in the sector. “You will take the contribution from the sanitization to be applied to the asphalt, payment of the civil service bonus. Does it seem correct to you?” Asked the minister, who defended that the contributions paid at the auction are reinvested in the sector itself.
The Minister of the Civil House has indicated that he will ensure that this mechanism is applied not only in sanitation, but also in other sectors of the infrastructure. “We need to redefine. The grant money of any concession must go to sewage, rainwater drainage, which corresponds to sanitation. I want to see what the (Cedae) concession will look like over time. It will need to be taken from sanitation. 20 billion reais to pay the amount he paid for the subsidy. Plus the investment he has to make”, quoted Costa, also specifying that the managers “saw” in the auctions a way to “make cash”, and not concentrate on the provision of services.
Asked if there would be a legal change to stipulate that grants must be reinvested in the sector, Costa said the government would first consider what could be included in the decree. “We will evaluate next week. Whatever needs a law, eventually we can continue the dialogue to seek a dialogue with Congress before sending it, but eventually changing the law,” he said.
Agency
The minister also stated that the Lula government will limit, by decree, the role of National Water and Sanitation Agency (ANA) in issuing regulatory guidelines for the sanitation sector. Critical to ANA’s choice to operate in the segment of waterfall, sewagedrainage and solid waste, a role defined by the Sanitation Legal Framework, Costa said there will be no need to change the law to correct, in his view, what he sees as extrapolation in the national agency’s activities.
“Within the limits of the law, we will limit what the law says in the decree. The law speaks of giving guidelines and the decree will say what the guidelines are. We say in the decree what the ANA is responsible for. from ANA to what it actually has to do” Costa said.
Since the government transition, the ANA’s role in sanitation has come under criticism from PT management. With more than 80 regulatory agencies spread across the country, the provision of water and sanitation services has historically suffered from fragmented regulatory frameworks. For this reason, the Congress and the Bolsonaro government has decided to entrust ANA with the mission of drafting reference standards to guide the work of the bodies that regulate water and sewage contracts.
Asked about this previous scenario, which motivated its definition in the law, Costa replied that what “put the sector in difficulty” was the “attempt to centralize”. “We want to work with the concept of nation. The concept we will strengthen is that the country is a federation, it needs lasting rules,” he said. “Where is it defined which national water agency will set the benchmark for a city’s sewage tender? The concessionary power rests with the municipality,” criticized the minister, for whom it would be unreasonable for a federal agency to prevail over a state or municipal regulatory body. “Whoever brings an unconstitutionality action will win,” he said.
Source: Terra
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