Deputy leaves Chamber to follow amendment works – 06/24/2023 – Power

The re-elected federal deputy Juarez Costa (MDB-MT) asked the Chamber for a 120-day leave to visit and inspect the works financed with resources directed by him through the amendments to the Union Budget.

Costa was once mayor of Sinop (MT), a thriving agribusiness hub in the north of Mato Grosso, and, in 2019, he took over as federal deputy for the state.

In practice, the license will allow the emedebist to gain political capital by working on works and projects, financed with millions of reais of amendments stamped by him, even though he belongs to the lower clergy of Congress.

The attitude also occurs in the midst of a wave that in the last ten years has more than quadrupled the amount allocated to amendments, leaving in the hands of each federal deputy and senator the decision to allocate more than R$ 70 million of public resources.

When Juarez arrived at the Chamber, it was already a time of prosperity. Congress had already conquered more space in the Budget between the end of the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government and the Michel Temer (MDB) administration.

This guaranteed a congressman a fixed quota in amendments to supply his electoral bases with resources for projects and works.

The politician and businessman from Mato Grosso then saw, during the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), an even greater leap in the money that parliamentarians could get for amendments.

“Like him [Juarez Costa] was the deputy champion of amendments in Mato Grosso, he was unable to go through all these municipalities that received these funds to see how the works are progressing”, said, in a note, the advisory of the licensed deputy.

The justification is that there are works with funds from amendments in 131 of the 141 municipalities in the state. And there is the expectation that, during Lula’s (PT) first term, Costa, who was elected on the Bolsonarist wave, will get funding for about 50 municipalities with the individual amendments.

Individual amendments are fixed quotas that every deputy and senator is entitled to. This year, they made almost all indications of this type of resource for the health area, which has less bureaucratic release.

Costa, whose party now forms part of the government’s base, has already achieved almost 90% of individual amendments. PL parliamentarians, such as Eros Biondini (MG), for example, had less than 2% of the transfers released at the beginning of the Lula government.

On May 30, when the season outside the mandate began, Mato Grosso announced on a social network that it would remain outside the mandate for 120 days.

“In the meantime, I will continue working for our state, as I have been doing, visiting several municipalities, following the work that is being done, looking at how we can contribute even more and thanking the expressive vote that we had and that was undoubtedly very important for our re-election “, published.

In his place, Deputy Flavinha (MDB-MT) took over, who had to take leave from her mandate as councilor in Colider, a city 150 km from Sinop – both municipalities in the north of the state.

Flavinha is a lawyer and is the third alternate on Costa’s ticket. The other two alternates accepted the agreement for them to relinquish their position and, thus, she became the first female federal deputy in the region.

As soon as he arrived at the Chamber, Flavinha had to vote on the MP (provisional measure) that dealt with the organization of Lula’s ministries. After intense negotiation, the MDB and the centrão decided to approve the text. She also voted for it.

The license request made by Costa does not entitle him to remuneration, according to the Chamber.

Costa was coordinator of the Mato Grosso bench and, therefore, also managed to become godfather of money sent to the region.

Around R$ 33 million were made possible in partnership with more state parliamentarians for the construction of the Nanci road, a link between Sinop and other roads in neighboring cities.

“A large part of my parliamentary amendments are intended for the purchase of machinery for family farming and for the infrastructure of these municipalities”, wrote the deputy on April 5 of last year.

“We earmarked R$ 1 million for a joint effort that will perform around 500 cataract surgeries”, he said in May last year at an event in Barra do Garças, which is also his electoral base.

Costa is part of the lower clergy of the Chamber. In 2022, he got less than BRL 15 million in rapporteur amendments – the most influential parliamentarians even indicated almost BRL 100 million of this type of budget.

The deputy’s license to tour Mato Grosso is yet another reflection of the weight of the amendments in political relations in Congress.

During his first term, rapporteur amendments, the main bargaining chip in negotiations between Bolsonaro and Congress, gave allied parliamentarians at the top of Congress the power to allocate extra resources to electoral bases.

In 2019, when Costa assumed his first term, a parliamentarian, on average, had around BRL 27.7 million – well above the level of BRL 17.5 million some years ago.

In 2020, when the rapporteur’s amendments were created, this amount exceeded BRL 70 million. Currently, the average is R$ 78 million —taking into account amendments and resources from ministries that are requested by Congress—, more than four times ten years ago.

The calculation considers an average of the amount reserved for amendments and the number of seats in Congress – more influential parliamentarians get more resources.