Lula pledges 79% more parliamentary amendments than the Bolsonaro government

Brasilia DF) – The pace of commitment to parliamentary amendments in the 2023 federal budget, the first year of the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva government, is 79% higher than the volume committed last year, the last year of Jair Bolsonaro’s administration. The information was presented by the Minister of the Institutional Relations Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, Alexandre Padilha, during a meeting with government leaders in the Chamber, the Senate and the National Congress, this Tuesday (5), at the Palácio do Planalto. Commitment is a technical term that means a reserve of public money that will be paid when a good is delivered or a service is completed.

“We have to commit to 80% more parliamentary amendments this year compared to last year, the last year of the previous government. It’s almost R$30 billion [R$ 29,7 bi] of individual, committee and bench amendments already committed at this time, compared to around R$ 17 billion [R$ 16,6 bi] in the last year of the previous government. The payment rate is also higher, that is, not only commitment [reserva]but the financial disbursement as well”,

he told journalists in an interview to present the numbers. The balance refers to individual, bench and committee amendments.

In terms of total payment, that is, execution of the resource, the difference is smaller, but favorable to the current government. Last year, R$26.26 billion were paid, while this year the financial disbursement for amendments corresponds to R$29.1 billion, an increase of 11%.

In addition to government leaders in the Legislature, the meeting was attended by the Minister of Integration and Regional Development, Waldez Góes, and representatives from the Ministries of Health, Social Development, Education, Cities, Agriculture and Agrarian Development, which are the folders, according to Padilha, where the largest volumes of parliamentary amendments are destined.

Special transfers

In addition to the parliamentary amendments, Alexandre Padilha reported that the government, this year, has already carried out the decentralization of R$ 6.47 billion in special transfers, which are a type of parliamentary amendment whose transfers are made by the National Treasury directly to the funds of states, municipalities and Federal District. Of this total, R$1.7 billion were outstanding payments from the previous government that were never paid.

Over the next few weeks, the government informed that the departments that are most in demand with the execution of parliamentary amendments must set up a special flow to ensure that the resources are committed and paid.

“So, there will be agendas from the leaders of the party benches that, eventually, have a lower proportion of amendments, in this final stretch, so that we can maintain the accelerated pace. We have already executed 80% more than was done in the last year of the previous government, but we want to surpass it and reach the end of the year with 100% execution”,

highlighted the minister.

Priority agendas

Regarding the government’s priority agendas in Congress, Padilha stated that he hopes to advance two bills (PLs) this week. In the Chamber, the goal is to approve the project that creates a type of debentures aimed at financing investments in infrastructure, such as railways and hydroelectric plants.

PL 2646/20, authored by deputy João Maia (PL-RN) and others, was approved in the Chamber in 2021, passed through the Senate, where it underwent a series of modifications and, therefore, returned to the Chamber, which will analyze the changes made by senators.

Debentures are debt securities launched on the market by companies and which can be purchased by individuals or legal entities in exchange for periodic interest payments.

In the Senate, the government hopes to see approved this week the project that regulates electronic sports betting, called bets, creating taxation of this service in the country. The text already passed through the Chamber in September and is awaiting analysis by senators.

Vetoes

In addition to the bills, the government is negotiating with the National Congress to maintain President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s vetoes on texts approved by parliamentarians. One is the veto on the extension of tax relief on the payroll of 17 economic sectors.

The other is the analysis of the president’s veto of the project that creates a time frame for the demarcation of indigenous lands. The time frame was already considered unconstitutional in a judgment by the Federal Supreme Court (STF), but the National Congress approved a text establishing the thesis, which, in practice, makes the recognition of traditional indigenous occupation much more difficult.

*With information from Agência Brasil

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