Last year, a chief of staff at the Legislative Assembly received R$148,500 in daily allowances as reimbursements for business trips made in 2024. The amount was higher than that transferred to 37 of the 40 state deputies in Santa Catarina in the same period.
Orestes Michel de Andrade is subordinate to state deputy Mário Motta (), elected in 2022 after spending three decades leading a news program at NSC, a broadcaster affiliated with Rede Globo in the state.
The amount accumulated by the chief of staff even exceeds Motta’s daily allowance, who accumulated R$129,600 in reimbursements last year.
When contacted, the deputy stated, via advisor, that the public resources invested by the office reflect a commitment to ethics, efficiency and the search for concrete results for the population of Santa Catarina.
“All accounts for the daily rates released were approved without any reservations by Alesc’s board of directors and, usually, our social networks anticipate our missions and we bring daily bulletins of the places visited and the agendas developed”, says an excerpt from the note.
Much of the amount refers to two international trips made by Michel Andrade, as he is known.
According to the rules of the Santa Catarina Assembly, each civil servant is entitled to 575 euros (R$ 3,622 reais, at the current exchange rate) per day of travel abroad for work – the amount is the same for deputies.
In one of them, Andrade accompanied Motta on a trip to Seoul, South Korea, from May 15th to May 27th. The two received 12.5 daily rates, or R$39,900 each. The deputy said that the seven representatives from Santa Catarina were accompanied by their advisors.
On another trip abroad, the chief of staff went alone to , from October 17th to 27th. He received a disbursement of R$24,500 for the period, and justified the reasons for the trip as being journalistic coverage and representing the parliamentarian at an official event.
The spokesperson stated that the trip sought to strengthen a project aimed at promoting school sports carried out in partnership with the country and that the deputy did not go because he was recovering from a health problem.
The chief of staff’s salary in December was R$29,600 gross and R$21,700 net. The amount received in daily payments last year, therefore, was almost 7 times the amount the server receives net monthly.
In 2020, he ran for the Novo party for the position of councilor in São José, a city in the metropolitan region of Florianópolis. He received 926 votes and was not elected.
The office stated that the server was chosen after a selection process and accompanies the trips to “ensure that the discussions have technical depth and that the results are recorded, analyzed and applied effectively.”
When contacted, the chief of staff did not return.
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