PT deputy wants to reveal authors of R$ 4.5 billion in amendment – 03/14/2024 – Power

Newly elected president of the Health Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, Dr. Francisco (PT-PI), 44, states that he plans to reveal the sponsors of R$4.5 billion of the committee amendments available in the 2024 Budget to the collegiate.

The deputy, however, says that he will still define how the data will be presented, in addition to the criteria for distributing the funds. In the current model, nominations are attributed to the commission, without specifying the true political beneficiary of the amendment.

“In the same way that the individual amendment has our indication, if the committee amendment someone is nominating, I don’t see a problem [em divulgar o autor]”, says the parliamentarian in an interview with Sheet.

The Health collegiate is the one that received the most resources from committee amendments from the National Congress, a type of funding boosted after the STF (Federal Supreme Court) declared, in 2022, the Budget rapporteur’s amendment unconstitutional.

Congressional committees began to decide the destination of more than R$11 billion in 2024, an amount higher than the approximately R$300 million reserved in the last year of the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) administration.

The lack of transparency was one of the main criticisms of the rapporteur’s amendments, used as a political negotiating currency during the last government.

Francisco recognizes that he will become the target of pressure to distribute the funds, especially from the center and allies of the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL). He claims there are sufficient resources to meet legislators’ requests and also reinforce more urgent actions, such as the fight against dengue.

“It is not possible to imagine that a volume of resources like this will be left to the discretion of the committee members only. I understand that it has to serve the entire Chamber”, he states. The PT does not want to be the biggest beneficiary, says the parliamentarian, “but it will ensure that it is not overlooked.”

The deputy says that the commission’s resource can still help balance transfers to the SUS (Unified Health System) by reinforcing the cash flow of municipalities that are not prioritized with individual amendments or those from state benches.

“Today there is a great dependence on parliamentary amendments in health. I am a little refractory to the idea that the manager should plan for that year based on an expectation of revenue, of a temporary increase. So, I think we have to renegotiate” , he states.

The deputy also says that he will meet with party leaders to present plans for using the commission’s funds and that he has not yet spoken to Lira or President Lula (PT) about the topic.

Francisco points out that he should take issues such as telemedicine, health plans and SUS financing to the commission. Regarding the last point, he says that many municipalities are unable to cover health expenses without funds from the amendments and that it is necessary to review the way the ministry transfers funds.

For the deputy, the amendments should be used for new services and works instead of just helping the local government to close its accounts.

“The population today does not see that the federal deputy did anything concrete with his amendments, as the resource I send is just helping to pay the usual cost bill. With the review of the form of financing, we arrive with something new, the municipality can open specialized services, organize a joint effort”, he declares.

He also states that the readjustment of the SUS service table “will not be the way forward, it does not provide a solution”. “We have approximately 850 projects in the commission, of which 570 still need to be designated as rapporteurs. I’m going to do a more detailed survey, we’re going to avoid the agenda that has a more ideological nature. What we want to focus on here is improving the SUS.”

The Ministry of Health’s budget is a subject of frequent dispute between Congress and the government. Around 40% of the discretionary resources of the department headed by Nísia Trindade are in the hands of the Legislature. The proportion is similar to that at the end of 2023, but higher than the 23% recorded in 2019.

The department has R$22.1 billion of the R$47.6 billion reserved in the 2024 Budget for parliamentary amendments.

The commissions’ resources are not mandatory, that is, the government has a greater margin to cut or reallocate the budget, while it is obliged to commit to other amendments. Lula has already vetoed R$5.6 billion in amendments from various committees in the budget — the health committee was not affected. The cut angered deputies and senators.

Health parliamentary amendments are mainly used to fund the activities of hospitals and outpatient clinics. They can also be used to build polyclinics, renew the Samu fleet, among other activities.

A doctor specializing in endocrinology, Francisco is in his first term as a federal deputy. Previously, he was a state deputy, health secretary of Piauí and mayor of São Francisco do Piauí, a municipality with less than 6 thousand inhabitants that is around 320 kilometers away from the capital, Teresina.

The deputy states that he was nominated by the PT hours before the election to the collegiate committee was formalized, last Wednesday (6). The name was chosen because it is part of the majority current of the party, CNB (Building a New Brazil), according to Francisco.

He says that the agreement to nominate a PL vice-president for the Health Commission and a PT name for the education committee, chaired by Bolsonarist Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG), is not “100% closed”. “It’s a somewhat unnecessary agreement”, he says, then pondering that he sees no problem in appointing an opponent to balance the political forces in the collegiate.