Opinion – Marcos Mendes: Values ​​of the amendments exceed those of the ‘budget dwarfs’

On September 10, 2021, in this space, I warned that maintaining rapporteur amendments in the Budget would open space for new cases of corruption, as in the famous “budget dwarfs scandal”.

In 1993, it was discovered that parliamentarians who commanded the Budget Committee made amendments in favor of social assistance entities created by themselves, and pocketed the money. In addition, they presented amendments for overpriced works, receiving bribes from contractors.

Currently, evidence of corruption in the use of rapporteur amendments continues to emerge: robotics kits for schools that do not have water or toilets, huge garbage trucks for small towns, asphalt that crumbles on sunny days. There are also indications in the individual amendments, as in the hiring of shows with millionaire fees.

At first, these could be considered isolated cases. If that were the case, it would not be fair to compare the current amendments with the corruption machine that operated in the 1990s.

However, a report by Breno Pires, in Revista Piauí, shows that the current level of corruption can be wide. Mayors are defrauding SUS records to include thousands of unperformed medical procedures. This increases the amount they can receive in amendments, as the limit is given by the number of procedures done in previous years.

From there, the money fills the city halls’ cash, and there is evidence that a part goes back into the pocket of the author of the amendment. The Ministry of Health does not audit, it accepts figures that are totally disconnected from reality, which encourages the multiplication of the practice. It is a similar scheme to the fake social assistance entities created by the “dwarves”.

The room for damage is large, as the current parliamentary amendments have much higher values ​​than those of the “dwarfs”. The CPI report that, at the time, investigated that scandal, brings numbers that allow the comparison. It reads that “in order to assess the importance of the rapporteur’s amendment, […] [elas] allocated 1.09 billion cruzeiros, out of a total of 3.6 billion from the Ministry of Social Action, that is, no less than 30.2% of the total funds” (Vol. 3, p.3-4) This 30% is little compared to the 40% that the rapporteur’s amendments represent today of the cost and investment expenditure of the Ministry of Regional Development, locus of the current amendments. Adding the other amendments together, we arrive at 53%.

In the indictment of parliamentarians, the CPI report also brings small values ​​in relation to the current ones. In the scheme related to social assistance, a deputy made amendments to the “respectable mark of US$ 860 thousand” (Vol. 4, p. 54). This currently represents no more than R$6.5 million. Very low value compared to the current rapporteur’s amendments which, if distributed equally to all parliamentarians, would give R$ 28 million per capita. Also less than the R$ 18 million per parliamentarian from individual amendments.

In another case, a deputy lost her mandate for embezzled amendments equivalent to R$500,000 a year (Vol. 4, p. 44): a tip by today’s standards. A deputy at the top of the Budget Committee, who managed to get major amendments, approved R$ 28 million/year (Vol. 4, p. 31). Currently this is just an average value.

In the amendments in favor of construction companies, the values ​​were higher and accessible to a few: two deputies registered, respectively, R$ 160 million (Vol. 4, p. 73) and R$ 85 million (Vol. 4, p. 15). These amounts are far behind the R$ 460 million of the current amendment champion. At least 7 parliamentarians in the current legislature made more than BRL 100 million in amendments in 2021 (O Estado de São Paulo, 7/9/22, p. A10).

Compared to current numbers, the “dwarfs” have shrunk. We do not yet have evidence of widespread corruption. But every day, the cases that emerge are broader and similar to those of the past. The conditions are favorable: large amounts of money, inert control bodies, omnipotent congressional leaders, low transparency and neglect in the investigation of deviations already identified. Are we going to wait for the new scandal or are we going to act first?