The organizations Transparência Brasil, Transparência Internacional Brasil and Associação Contas Abertas said the bill presented last week to the Chamber of Deputies, with rules on parliamentary amendments, “could aggravate corruption risks”. The demonstration refers to the proposal of federal deputy Rubens Pereira Júnior (PT-MA). The parliamentarian presented the project last Thursday, the 31st, and stated that the text was developed in dialogue with the Federal Court (STF) and in agreement with the Chamber, the Senate, the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) and the Ministry of Civil House.
This Monday the 4th the project was among the 14 points on the agenda of the virtual extraordinary deliberative session of the Chamber.
In a joint note, the three organizations state that the project “does not meet the requirements established by the Supreme Court, especially regarding transparency and traceability of changes, nor does it impose the necessary measures to reduce the serious risks of corruption in the management sector parliamentary amendments”. According to the press release released yesterday, “the lack of transparency in the formulation of parliamentary amendments will result, in the case of collective amendments, in the absence of a minimum and standardized list of information that must appear in the minutes of the colleges and commissions meetings that define the amendments to be presented.”
According to the bodies, “these minutes should be published in a structured format, so as to allow the entire enforcement process to be followed in federal government systems, such as Transferegov and the Transparency Portal.”
The proposal signed by Pereira Júnior limits the growth of amendments and allows the cuts in resources indicated by deputies and senators to respect the fiscal framework. The Chamber project proposes a real growth of 2.5% per year for mandatory parliamentary amendments (individual and constituency), setting the same limit as the fiscal framework, and sets a value of R$ 11.5 billion for the amendments of the commission in 2025, with only adjustment for inflation in subsequent years, according to the Estadao anticipated. In 2024, these amendments amount to R$15.5 billion, i.e. they would be reduced. The formula was created by the Civil House of the Lula government.
Expenses
According to the Executive’s technicians, the proposal provides a forecast of how much the amendments will grow in the coming years. On the other hand, the provision grants an increase that other public expenses currently do not have, as well as including the amendments of the Commissions, heirs of the secret budget, in a definitive form in the Union Budget. In practice, the amendments can increasingly reduce public spending spaces to finance the public machine and the maintenance of essential services.
Another change is to allow the government to cut amendments to meet mandatory spending, such as pensions and social benefits, and the fiscal framework. Today the government can freeze it, but is not authorized to cancel the resources indicated by deputies and senators. The initiative is part of the government’s attempt to have more autonomy to change the Budget without authorization from Congress.
The proposal also prohibits the division of amendments on the bench for individual appointments of representatives and senators, assigns half of the amendments on the committee to health care, and forces lawmakers to say where the money from the Pix amendment will be used, which is not the case today. Supervision is also entrusted to the Federal Audit Office (TCU). In the case of amendments in committee, disclosure of party leaders’ proposals is required, but there is no obligation to reveal the names of MPs who benefited from them, paving the way for the maintenance of a hidden practice that currently occurs.
‘Recurring’
In the case of the Pix amendments, entities say many of the problems persist. “The obligation to provide information on the subject matter, imposed by the PLP (complementary law), does not prevent this information from being generic. A recurring problem remains with the possibility that the Pix amendments will be dismembered after the approval of the Annual Budget Law (LOA ) ), already in the executive phase, as happens today, making it difficult to know in advance the destination of public funds”, reads the demonstration.
The entities stress that deputies and senators “remain simple indicators of spending, with little or no accountability.” According to the note, there are no initiatives to monitor, on the part of the committees, the implementation of the amendments in their areas, nor procedures for social participation in the definition of the amendments. Furthermore, they state that “accountability is not required of entities benefiting from the Pix amendments.”
The organizations’ statement also defends a “more active role” of the federal government, a “technical evaluation logic on the efficiency of investments made through the amendments” and “greater objectivity in establishing technical criteria for proposing, approving and executing the amendments” .
When contacted, Pereira Júnior denied the organisations’ position. “The text complies with the decisions of the Federal Supreme Court, ensuring transparency and traceability in several places,” said the PT deputy, also through a note. “Pix amendment with pre-project, priority for unfinished works, bench amendment for structural works, amendment in the commission for structural works, prior vote in public session, with minutes published subsequently, with future limitation of the value of the amendments, so there is a lot of progress. The text emerges in synergy and will put an end to the secret budget, consolidating scattered rules”, he concluded.
In the Senate there is another project in the works, presented by the rapporteur of the 2025 Budget, Senator Angelo Coronel (PSD-BA). The text incorporates the government’s proposal for an increase in mandatory amendments, but does not impose restrictions on committee amendments. Furthermore, there are differences between the proposals on transparency.
The information is from the newspaper The State of S. Paolo.
Source: Terra
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