Lula launches new PAC fueled by unfinished work from PT administrations

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) launches this Friday (11) a new version of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) in a strategy to try to increase the government’s popularity by carrying out works throughout the country. The other editions of the PT program, however, were marked by various irregularities such as overpriced works that led Brazil to a strong recession in 2015.

This new version of the program began to be conceived by Lula’s ministers in the first months of the government, but the launch had to be postponed at least four times by the Planalto Palace. Even without the approval of the new fiscal framework, responsible for defining what the government’s spending limits will be for the coming years, Lula’s expectation is to guarantee at least R$ 240 billion in federal public investment for the works until 2026. that around R$ 60 billion are spent per year.

Among them, transportation, including the expansion of highways; energy, with works that favor renewable sources; urban infrastructure, including Minha Casa, Minha Vida works; social equipment, with works in health, education, sports, communications and also works for water supply and sewage, with the Água para Todos program.

“This PAC will be extremely important and, with it, we will address the issue of energy transition. So the PAC is the following: the PAC is saying that Brazil is back, economic growth is back, wages are back, and the improvement in the quality of life of the people is back”, said Lula in an interview with SBT.

New PAC was boosted by unfinished works by the Lula and Dilma governments

The first version of the PAC was launched by Lula in 2007, in the PT’s second term, focusing on infrastructure works. In 2019, a report by the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU) pointed out that only 9% of the works carried out through the program between 2007 and 2009 were delivered by the PT administration.

In the period from 2011 to 2014, when then-president Dilma Rousseff launched the second version of the PAC, the TCU indicated that only 26% of the works were delivered. In addition, the court pointed out serious irregularities in 32 infrastructure works that received federal funds. According to the TCU, the main irregularity was overbilling.

Currently, it is estimated that Brazil has at least 14,000 works stopped throughout the country, with just over 4,000 in the area of ​​education alone. Lula’s new PAC began to be assembled through a list of more than 400 works presented by the 27 governors during a meeting at the Planalto Palace in January.

The plan defined by the Civil House for this year, however, is to announce the investment in 2 thousand works, of which 300 are indicated by the governors and 1.7 thousand were chosen by the federal government. According to the plan presented by Costa and Padilha to parliamentarians this week, the government defined that the new PAC will have a managing council, with the participation of the ministries of the Civil House, Finance, Planning and Management.

This council will be responsible for approving the portfolio of works in all states and how much funding will be allocated to each area of ​​the program. In addition, another executive group should have secretaries who will monitor the implementation and execution of the program as a whole.

Government wants to expand investments in the new PAC through public banks

On another front, Lula works with the expectation of including financing lines through public banks such as Caixa Econômica Federal and the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) to increase the amount of the new PAC. In addition, there will be Petrobras projects, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and concessions.

“The government hopes to attract R$ 1 trillion over 4 years, involving resources with PAC characteristics made by other bodies and even by the private sector, as a result of PPPs or concessions”, stated Senator Cid Gomes (PDT-CE).

To guarantee the capital of the banks, the Planalto Palace prepared a consultation with the Federal Court of Auditors to authorize the dilution of the return of funds from public banks to the Treasury.

“We are going to start in this plan what the states have been doing for some years now, which are PPP projects. We are going to use PPPs to leverage infrastructure investments. Whether with PPPs directly from the federal government, but also in partnership with states and municipalities. federal government has never used this tool, but it is now very consolidated in Brazil”, defended minister Rui Costa.