The government’s ordinance to resume payment of parliamentary amendments generated uneasiness among allies of () and the minister of the (Supreme Federal Court).
The annoyance of government members grew after Dino denied, on Monday (9), three requests made by the (Attorney General of the Union) to facilitate the release of more than R$ 13 billion in uncommitted amendments.
The government’s requests were in line with Congressional leadership. They aimed to pay for “Pix” amendments and identify the parliamentarians who were the original authors of the committee amendments.
With Dino’s refusal, the government finalized the ordinance in less than 24 hours. The text may open loopholes for the “Pix” amendments sent to the health area to be executed without the presentation of work plans.
The ordinance also allows committee amendments to be executed when “any congressman” identifies himself as requesting the funds — without guarantees that the congressman is actually responsible for the money.
Dino, who until then had been coming, started demanding more transparency and traceability of parliamentary amendments. The blocking of funds and the new rules caused a crisis between the three Powers.
Government emissaries try to build negotiation channels with other court ministers. But they still haven’t decided on a new appeal to the STF.
The imbroglio began five months ago, but gained new contours with the solution given by the government with rules for distributing resources, amid the government’s urgency in voting on the spending cut package in Congress and the demand from deputies and senators to receive, as counterpart, its amendments, repressed since August.
An AGU opinion was published guiding ministries to distribute the amendments and an interministerial ordinance on the same topic.
Minister Flávio Dino’s assistants say that he was not even aware of the two texts and that he will only read them when they are in the file. But people close to the magistrate and Lula see an attempt by the government to embarrass him due to his decisions.
The president’s allies say that Lula is worried about the repercussions of Dino’s decisions, especially because parliamentarians are suspicious of the government’s participation in the suspension of payment for amendments as ordered by the court.
Government members even state, with reservations, that Dino broke an agreement by rejecting the AGU’s appeal.
Although he is concerned about the impact of Dino’s decisions, Lula would not be willing to confront his former Minister of Justice, whom he likes.
At the government base, Dino’s critics are beginning to cast doubts on the magistrate’s loyalty, fueling suspicion that he would be willing to run for President of the Republic now.
Faced with the possibility of seeing the spending package not move forward in Congress, Lula called the presidents of the Chamber and of , (-AL) and (-MG), respectively, to a meeting on Monday. At the meeting, according to reports, the PT member said that he did not interfere in Dino’s decision.
During the meeting, the details of the ordinance that regulates the release of amendments, necessary for the package to move forward, were also agreed.
The minister (Institutional Relations), the day before, had already passed on the draft text to parliamentarians. Representative Aguinaldo Ribeiro (PP-PB) took a copy to the president of the Chamber, who, according to reports, requested a change in the device that dealt with the payment of resources for the health area.
The ordinance was published in an extra edition of the Official Gazette of the Union on Tuesday (10). To journalists, shortly after the text was aired, Lira said that she had not read either the ordinance or the AGU opinion.
“We have an approved law that was not declared unconstitutional, sanctioned by the Executive, with the minister’s decision a little different from what was approved. So, that is the dilemma,” he said.
For palace assistants, the meeting with Lula agreed on final terms so that the amendments could be released, and the package could move forward. Parliamentarians, however, are still skeptically waiting to assess whether the measure will be implemented in practice.
The ordinance issued by the government to resume payment of amendments was published after minister Flávio Dino denied an appeal from the AGU that requested changes to three main points.
The minister responded that congressmen need to identify themselves to have the money unlocked.
The government also questioned the section of Dino’s decision that established the need for prior presentation of a work plan for the execution of the “Pix” amendments. The justification was that the amendment law approved by Congress in November already defined criteria for releasing the funds. Dino denied it.
The last point asked the Supreme Court to change the rule to cap the growth of parliamentary amendments. Congress had defined that the amendments would be readjusted by correcting the current year’s primary expenditure; In the case of non-imposing amendments, the value would always be updated according to inflation.
Dino, however, defined another criterion. He stipulated three indices related to government expenditure and the fiscal framework and said that the lowest of these indicators will be used to update the value of the following year’s amendments.
