The minister of the (Supreme Federal Court) stated this Friday (27) that the Chamber of Deputies did not present essential information about the blocked amendments, and gave until 8pm this Friday for a new response.
Earlier, also this Friday, the Attorney’s Office asked the minister to release around R$4.2 billion in amendments, saying that the commissions were suspended to give priority to the voting agenda and that there is no illegality in the indication of resources.
In the new decision, Dino states that the Supreme Court has been trying to make payment for the amendments viable since August, but that the Chamber insists “on interpretations that are incompatible with the constitutional principles of transparency and traceability”, without showing essential information.
On Monday (23), Dino suspended the payment and ordered an investigation to be launched to investigate the process of releasing the amendments, including the testimony of deputies who had denounced the irregularities. The PF the next day.
The decision was made in response to a request from the Novo and PSOL parties and the Transparência Brasil association. The three allege that the Chamber leaders distributed 5,449 committee amendments totaling R$4.2 billion without the committees having even met during the period.
The representation cites a letter signed by 17 party leaders, sent to the government on the 12th. The magazine’s report showed that the list, in practice, changed the allocation of part of the commission’s funds, without approval from the committees.
The report says that the new indications presented total R$ 180 million reais; There are still other changes totaling R$98 million. The state most benefited from the allocation of R$4.2 billion would be the stronghold of Arthur Lira (PP-AL), Alagoas, with almost R$500 million.
Dino emphasizes that there is no “leader’s amendment” neither in the Constitution (in which there is only provision for individual and bench amendments) nor in the National Congress resolution that established the committee amendments.
“I note that Amendments from the President of the House or the President of the Commission, Party Leaders and the Board of the Legislative House, to date, do not exist in the Constitution and national laws”, says the minister in the decision.
The law approved to try to make parliamentary amendments more transparent does not create a leader’s amendment, but gives party leaders in the Chamber and Senate the new power to indicate to committees (such as the Constitution and Justice or Education committees) where the money must be sent.
Before the law, the committee amendments — which were boosted with the — were defined in theory, in a collegiate manner, by the commissions. In practice, however, influential parliamentarians chose how resources should be spent without being identified.
In this Friday’s document, the Chamber’s Advocacy says that the information presented to the minister does not correspond to the truth, reveals a profound lack of knowledge of the budgetary legislative process, is inaccurate and out of context.
The Chamber says that the amendments were approved in 2023 and that the number of 5,449 could not be reached, under any circumstances, because each committee can approve up to 8 amendments (totaling 416, considering the 30 committees of the Chamber, the 17 of the Senate and the 5 of Congress).
In the document sent to Dino, the Chamber also states that the commissions were suspended between December 12th and 20th with the sole objective of making the federal government’s spending package and the regulation of tax reform viable.
Lira spent Christmas with her family in Maceió (AL), but returned to the federal capital to discuss the matter. This Thursday (26), the deputy met with President Lula (PT), party leaders and his possible successor, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB).
Amendments are a way in which deputies and senators can send money for works and projects in their electoral bases and, in doing so, increase their political capital. A , and not the locations with the highest demand in the country.
In Monday’s decision, Dino stated that there is a contradiction between the efforts of the government and Congress to approve Minister Fernando Haddad’s (Finance) fiscal package and the insistence on the release of billions of reais without transparency.
