The Presidency drafted an opinion allowing bench leaders to assume the postulation of a list of committee amendments, defined by members of the collegiate bodies in the , forwarded to the Executive.
The document, presented on Tuesday night (17), totaling around R$4.5 billion, without the need to identify the real interested parties. The transfers occur amid the government’s economic agenda voting agenda in Congress.
The opinion was made in response to a letter signed by 17 party leaders in , qualifying themselves as requesting a broad list of RP8 amendments. In practice, the Civil House attests to the validity of this letter, sending the legal analysis of the amendments referring to 2024 and previous years to the ministries.
Among the signatories of the list with more than 5,000 nominations are the leader of the government in the Chamber, José Guimarães (-CE), the leader of the PT, Odair Cunha (MG), and the leader of the Republicans and candidate for president of the House, ( BP). The head of the Chamber, (PP-AL), would be the guarantor of the initiative.
This list of amendments was forwarded to the Civil House and the Secretariat of Institutional Relations on the 12th. The department consulted the Secretariat of Legal Affairs (SAJ) of the Civil House “with the aim of questioning whether a letter, signed by parliamentarians, would be sufficient instrument to comply with regulations regarding the identification of those requesting commission amendments”.
The document says that the requirements were met. In light of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) on the execution of parliamentary amendments, the opinion states that, “due to the need for the execution of parliamentary amendments to presuppose transparency and ‘the obligation to disclose complete, precise, clear information and sincere’, it cannot be assumed that the signatory parliamentarians are not the actual requesters of the RP8 amendments”.
The opinion reproduces paragraphs of Dino’s decisions, citing that there is no obstacle to payment of the amount, and the replacement of the committee president is prohibited. SAJ, however, is keen to emphasize that it will be up to the ministries to analyze documents before authorizing the payment of amendments.
In August, minister Flávio Dino suspended the transfer of funds for amendments, demanding that there be more transparency mechanisms. Payments were again authorized at the beginning of this month, as long as they complied with rules, such as the identification of requesting parliamentarians.
Before the August decision, the Congress leadership had been using committee amendments to direct money to the deputies’ electoral bases and maintain secrecy about the sponsors of the funds.
The amendment appeared as being from the committee, when in fact it was divided between more influential parliamentarians.
Now, with the signature of party leaders, several real sponsors of the amendments will remain unidentified.
According to congressmen who followed the negotiations with the Executive, there is a commitment from the government to release resources, with the Minister of Finance, (PT), as its guarantor. Government members familiar with budget execution state that there would not be enough time to implement all the amendments. Hence, the importance of the minister’s approval.
Still according to reports from deputies, the role of the Chief Minister of the Civil House, (PT), in the negotiations was being poorly received, which led them to turn to the head of the Treasury.
Despite this, however, Rui was mentioned by name by the leader of the PSD in the House, Antonio Brito (BA), in an announcement that the party would support the measures voted on in the plenary. There was a fear among government supporters that the bench would not deliver the necessary votes, given the deputies’ dissatisfaction with the Executive.
“We have just left a bench meeting and we are going to give a vote of confidence to the federal government, the Minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa, the leader Guimarães and the federal government”, stated Brito. “We will be coordinating the bench to resolve doubts and so that we can cooperate with the development of Brazil.”
The Executive is working to have spending cut proposals approved by this Friday (20), the last working day before the start of the recess.
The identification of the sponsors of the commission amendments, which are approved jointly, was a requirement of the Supreme Court to release the money. This year, Congress allocated R$15.5 billion for this type of funding.
As shown by Sheetfor example, the Commission for National Integration and Regional Development distributes billions of funds for amendments to an unknown destination by members of the committee itself.
Before this opinion, the .
This ordinance published by the government (PT) allows commission amendments to be paid when any parliamentarian identifies themselves as requesting the allocation of the money, including party leaders.
