Congress leaders are already discussing a project to give transparency to rapporteur’s amendments

Faced with pressure from the STF (Supreme Federal Court) and from control bodies, party leaders discussed a way to make it clearer how the federal budget money reserved for rapporteur amendments is used, which served as a bargaining chip in political agreements between the government and Congress.

However, the plan foresees that the rules for disclosing information about these amendments will be established in a project to be approved by Congress itself.

The proposal is not yet a consensus, but allies of the Chamber’s president, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), say that this is a way out to resolve the impasse created by the STF, which ruled on Tuesday (9) the suspension or release of these seams.

In a virtual session of the plenary, still at dawn, two ministers followed the injunction decision of the rapporteur, Minister Rosa Weber,. by suspension. They were Carmen Lúcia and Luís Roberto Barroso. In the morning, Minister Edson Fachin accompanied the others. In the late afternoon, Ricardo Lewandowski and Alexandre de Moraes also voted to uphold Rosa Weber’s decision, forming a majority for the suspension.

The subject still needs to be analyzed in the plenary of the Court.

The rapporteur’s amendment is a type of amendment that was included in the 2020 Budget by Congress, which now has control of almost twice the budget of previous years.

It is currently the main bargaining chip in important congressional votes. The money available this year is R$ 16.8 billion.

The Palácio do Planalto and allies, mainly Lira, had been using these resources to privilege political allies and, with that, broaden their support base in the Legislative.

There is no public database with the list of deputies and senators benefiting from this political negotiation, nor is there open information on the destination of public money.

The project being discussed by leaders would be an alternative to determine what kind of information would be disclosed.

The greater the obligation to provide data, the lesser the power of government allies in articulating with congressmen will be, as greater transparency will expose the privilege given to those who vote for projects of interest to the Palácio do Planalto.

The idea of ​​changing the rules for the rapporteur’s amendments was already aired in the discussion of the 2022 Budget, whose rapporteur is Deputy Hugo Leal (PSD-RJ). He indicated to allies that he is in favor of making the use of these resources more transparent.

Members of the STF also articulated behind the scenes to prevent the court from totally prohibiting the payment of the rapporteur’s amendments and buying a direct fight with Congress and the Executive.

These amendments were suspended on Friday (5), when Minister Rosa Weber, of the STF, issued an injunction (provisional decision) blocking the entire use of the instruments. Now, the trial will take place in the virtual plenary between this Tuesday and this Wednesday (10).

One wing of the court even worked on trying to build a majority in order to maintain the execution of these amendments, but with the determination that mechanisms be adopted to increase transparency.

Today there are four types of amendments: individual (which every deputy and senator is entitled to), bench (parliamentary from each state define priorities for the region), commission (defined by members of the congressional bodies) and rapporteur (created by influential congressmen from 2020 to benefit their electoral strongholds).

In the case of individual and bench amendments, there is much more public information, such as who was the congressman who requested the release of funds.

The use of this new type of amendment (the rapporteur) to bargain political support in the Chamber and Senate has also been questioned by a controlling body, such as the TCU (Tribunal de Contas da União).

The problem raised is that there is no transparent disclosure of the destination of this money.

The vice president of the Chamber, Marcelo Ramos (PL-AM), presented this Monday (8) a draft resolution that provides for the obligation to disclose information about these resources.

For him, these amendments must have criteria for the distribution of funds and full transparency about the deputy or senator who made the request, in addition to the state or municipality benefiting from it.

“Any improvement related to the instrument of parliamentary amendments must come from the National Congress itself”, defended Ramos in the project presented.