Minister of Management and Innovation defended bureaucracy that is not hired for ideological reasons and that does not change with the change of government
The Minister of Management and Innovation in Public Services, said this Monday (11.Nov.2024) that stability in the public service guarantees greater reporting of procedural irregularities. The speech was made during the seminar “The Public Sector in Transformation”, in São Paulo, promoted by Sheet from S.Paulo and the People Ahead Movement.
“We know very well that stable public servants are capable of reporting irregular processes. We had this recently in Brazil, in the area of vaccine contracting, for example, where people who were precisely in the financial administrative area of contracting were the ones who were able, due to their stability, to report bad actions”these.
He cited 3 main reasons for defending stability:
- a stable professionalized bureaucracy;
- a stable bureaucracy that ensures process integrity; and
- a bureaucracy that is not hired for ideological reasons.
For the minister, a stable professional bureaucracy guarantees the integrity of processes so that they can be carried out regardless of the change of government and so that civil servants can make complaints without any risk of subsequent persecution.
“[Evita] the risk of political persecution, as happens today in the United States, a country that has little stability. That in the government [de Joe] Biden discussed an increase in stability precisely because of a concern about a change of government, an ideological change in the bureaucracy. This is interesting because it goes both ways. Of course, each server has the right to have their political position, but they are there to act for the Brazilian State. So it is very important that he does not carry this ideological bias into his hiring.”he stated.
Dweck said that he has defended the stability of the public sector since January 1, 2023, when he began his tenure in the (PT) government. In the Brazilian case, stability exists for State functions (such as judges and federal police officers), but also for teachers, nurses and administrative staff, careers that have similar vacancies in the private sector.
“Again I say: it is for the defense of the Brazilian State. I see this debate that only some areas should have stable employees: the police area, the judiciary. There is no doubt about that, but when we talk about administrative areas, the public procurement area is a key area for a process of integrity in contracting”he stated.
He said that there are more than 66,000 people in the public service already able to retire and a projection of more than 180,000 people retiring in the next 10 years.
He added that, in the ministry’s view, there is a need for a professionalized workforce and debate on the issue of how public servants are hired. According to Dweck, since 2026, the majority of hirings have been due to court decisions and not government decisions. Therefore, there was a very large imbalance with areas in the public service lacking staff.
“The picture we received when I joined the ministry was a net reduction of 70,000 federal employees, net because there was hiring in some areas. The total output was almost 200,000 employees and hiring was not widespread. So there was hiring in the areas of security, in the police mainly, in the area of education, but in other areas, there was very little hiring”these.
PUBLIC SERVANTS
Brazil has fewer public employees (federal, state and municipal) in relation to the size of the population than in many developed countries. But here the employment rate (65%) is much higher.
“Around 70% of federal government employees are called statutory employees, governed by the Federal Public Servant Statute (law 8,112, of 1990), after passing a competition. States and municipalities followed the same logic in hiring, resulting in 65% of the 12.1 million public employees having stability”it says by journalist Fernando Canzian, published by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo.
When a civil servant has stability, this makes it much more difficult to demand productivity and eventually dismiss if goals are not met.
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This report was written by journalism intern Bruna Aragão under the supervision of assistant editor Katarina Moraes.
