Without new ideas, Lula will boost old PT programs

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT) opened his ministerial meeting to review his six-month tenure this Thursday (15) with a veto of new ideas by his 37 government ministers. On the other hand, the PT took the opportunity to signal that he intends to boost old PT management programs, some of them marked by irregularities, as a way of marking his third term at the head of the Planalto Palace.

In the wake of these old programs, Lula is preparing the new version of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) for early July. “As we had a huge number of public policies that had worked, we decided to recreate these public policies. As of July 2, we are going to launch a large program of works, a large program for national development, with infrastructure work in all areas”, said Lula when opening the ministerial meeting.

The PAC was launched for the first time in 2007, during Lula’s second term, seeking to consolidate the PT’s development policy through state investment in infrastructure to “make the wheel of the economy turn”. But despite Lula considering that the program “worked”, a study by Inter.B Consultoria, released in 2016, the last year of the PT government Dilma Rousseff, concluded that the program was inefficient, in addition to pointing to overpricing for works.

The third edition of the PAC comes with the same objective as the first: an attempt by Lula to warm up the Brazilian economy at a time when his popularity is low and he is struggling to form a base in Congress.

At this first moment, however, Lula’s program will resume only about 3.5% of the 14,000 works that are at a standstill throughout the country. In other words, the government’s expectation is that the new PAC will have as its starting point a list of 499 works and projects presented by the 27 governors in a meeting with Lula in January. Each state took to the Planalto Palace a list of priority undertakings to be considered in the new program.

“We are resuming 14,000 paralyzed works, 4,000 of them in schools. This year we have R$ 23 billion to invest in the area of ​​transport, that is, we are going to do more this year alone than was done in the last four years”, justified Lula in this week.

If confirmed, the launch of PAC 3 will take place almost three months behind the government’s promise. Initially, the idea was to launch the new version of the Growth Acceleration Program in early April, on the occasion of the balance of the first 100 days of government. The package, however, was not ready in time.

Other versions of the PAC were marked by various irregularities

Lula’s main bet for this year, the PAC was marked by several suspicions of fraud during the other PT governments. In 2007, the year in which Lula launched the first version of the program, the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) even blocked resources from 29 PAC works due to various irregularities.

At the time, most of the problems encountered by the TCU dealt with irregularities in the execution of agreements, overpricing, undue changes to projects and problems in the bidding process, among others. Among the PAC works that presented serious irregularities were those on the BR-163 highway, on the border between Mato Grosso do Sul and Mato Grosso, those for the integration of the São Francisco River, in Pernambuco.

In 2011, during the administration of Dilma Rousseff, another audit by the TCU pointed out irregularities in the planning and execution of the Arco Rodoviário project, a work of almost R$ 1 billion by the PAC in Rio de Janeiro. In addition, by 2016, only 16.8% of the slightly more than 29,000 works announced in the two stages of the PAC had been completed within the forecast period.

Now, Lula is trying to deflect the criticism by indicating that he intends to “render accounts to the Brazilian press” about the progress of the new version of the PAC. “We will render accounts to the Brazilian press of what we are doing and what we decided to do. Nothing will be hidden. No difficulty will be hidden, no problem will be hidden and everything we do we want to make public”, promised Lula during his ministerial meeting.

Lula promises to reissue Minha Casa Minha Vida as a way to wave to the middle class

In another strategy of trying to increase his popularity, President Lula indicated this week that he intends to change the Minha Casa Minha Vida program to cater to the middle class electorate. Such as People’s Gazette showed, the PT has been studying measures to contain the PT’s attrition with this segment of society.

The government is considering raising the maximum value of the residence to meet the president’s request so that families with a monthly income of R$ 10,000 or R$ 12,000 can also have access to the housing program. Currently, the income limit is R$ 8 thousand per month.

The Ministry of Cities, responsible for Minha Casa, Minha Vida, will still do the calculations to find out which model to be proposed for expanding the program to the middle class. The expectation, however, is that with the expansion it will be possible to finance properties of up to R$ 500 thousand.

“We need to do not just Minha Casa, Minha Vida for the poorest people. We need to do Minha Casa, Minha Vida for the middle class. guy also wants to have a house and this guy wants to have a better house”, said Lula.

Minha Casa, Minha Vida was created in the second Lula government, in 2009. In 2020, the initiative was extinguished by the management of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and a new one was launched, called Casa Verde e Amarela, which brought changes in several criteria.

In February of this year, the program was resumed by the Lula government through a provisional measure. The new version foresees, among other measures, a focus on the low-income population, with 50% of the program units reserved for families with incomes of up to R$ 2,640. The track had been extinguished in the version of the Bolsonaro government.

Chamber changed MP that provided for hiring doctors without Revalida

Another program reissued by Lula, Mais Médicos initially provided for the hiring of professionals trained in foreign countries without the practical test of Revalida. The exam is necessary to validate the diploma in Brazil and to be able to practice the profession in the country.

The lack of this requirement was included in the Provisional Measure edited by Lula to relaunch the program. Opposition deputies, however, reached an agreement with the government and withdrew this passage during the vote on the MP by the plenary of the Chamber this Wednesday (14). The text still needs to go through the Senate until the 2nd of August.

“I strongly defend the continuation of Revalida, as a way of guaranteeing the assessment of the skills and knowledge of doctors trained abroad who wish to practice their profession in the country”, said deputy Dr. Luiz Ovando (PP-MS).

Deputy Dr. Frederico (Patriota-MG) stated that maintaining the current rules of Revalida was essential to approve the proposal. “We want to bring quality service to those in need and, for that, Revalida is the minimum”, he said.

The More Doctors program was created in 2013 during the government of then President Dilma Rousseff (PT). At the time, it generated controversy since most of the doctors came from Cuba, in a partnership with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which was widely criticized, both for the lack of revalidation of the diploma of these doctors to work in Brazil, and for the retention of 75% of the salary of each professional, which remained with the Cuban dictatorship.