Stopped work on the TRF-1 depicts the loss of public money – 06/12/2023 – Frederico Vasconcelos

Exactly ten years ago, on June 14, 2013, the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region released a note from its Works Division on the delays in the construction of the majestic headquarters, in Brasília:

“Given the current scenario, we estimate that the work will be completed in June 2016”.

Article by Constança Rezende published in Sheetthis Saturday (10) reveals that Justice spends R$ 11,000 a day to keep the multi-billion-dollar work in Brasilia stopped.

According to the report, the building has already consumed R$ 547 million from public coffers. Now, TRF-1 foresees the end of the work in November 2030.

Until then, the cost will rise to R$ 1.4 billion, more than double what was estimated when the project was started.

Construction of the headquarters began in 2007. The competition was marked by suspicions of overbilling and bidding bias, as this reporter anticipated that year, predicting that the Judiciary would spend R$ 1.2 billion to build three courts with monumental headquarters.

The Consortium of Via Engenharia/Construtora OAS Ltda. and Construções e Comércio Camargo Corrêa S/A won the tender for the construction. Estimated at almost half a billion reais, the seat was considered the most expensive court in the country, with a total construction area greater than that of the STJ (Superior Court of Justice).

In 2008, the Federal Public Ministry considered the work “an attack on the principle of economy”.

The area allocated to the President of the Court and his advisors would be four times larger than that of the President of the Republic’s office.

In November 2006, Oscar Niemeyer’s architecture office was hired due to unenforceable bidding to prepare the architecture projects, structures and complements of the new headquarters, for the amount of R$ 8.6 million.

“Facilities devoid of sumptuousness”

In 2007, when there was a public hearing on the construction of the new headquarters, the TRF-1 even informed that “the forecast is consistent with the costs of works of equivalent proportion and magnitude, considering the size and complexity of the structure and facilities, lacking of sumptuousness”.

The president of TRF-1, judge Assusete Magalhães, traveled with a delegation of federal judges, members of the court, to the office of the company Arquitetura e Urbanismo de Oscar Niemeyer S/C Ltda, in Rio de Janeiro. Magalhães went to receive the project (2,400 plants) from Niemeyer’s hands. The architect, who died in 2012, did not like to travel by plane.

“It is with great joy and satisfaction that I receive this project from the hands of Oscar Niemeyer, which will greatly benefit the jurisdictional provision to all users of 2nd degree Federal Justice in the 1st Region”, said the magistrate, on the occasion.

In October 2009, based on a cooperation agreement, the technical staff of the Brazilian Army began the physical and financial survey of the services performed in the work on the new headquarters. In January 2010, the works were resumed, in the second stage of the work. But the contracted company was unable to fulfill the contract, which ended in December of that year.

In 2011, when analyzing the 2012 budget proposal, the CNJ unanimously recommended withdrawing the allocation of BRL 50 million for the construction of the building. There were indications of serious irregularities in the contracts.

According to the report by Constança Rezende, professor Frederico Flósculo, from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at UnB, sees in the episode the collapse of the lack of planning by the Judiciary.

“The Judiciary has always shown itself to be good at maintaining its perks and privileges, an aristocracy only in the field of architecture that does not understand itself in terms of the construction of its buildings. It’s all uncoordinated”, he says.

The TRF-1 press office informed the reporter that the work is at a standstill “due to several problems that led to the termination of the contract with executing companies” and that there was a need for technological and regulatory updating of the projects, which is the current stage.

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