The federal government blocked R$ 2.5 billion from the FNDCT (National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development), which represents 56% of the total resources available in the fund.
The cut determined by the federal government is necessary to accommodate in the spending ceiling possible extra expenses that are being studied by the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
The FNDCT has BRL 4.5 billion available for 2022, but the federal government has already warned that it will not transfer BRL 2.5 billion.
In practice, this means that the FNDCT can even commit the resource, but will not have the money to make the payment this year.
Commitment is the first step in any budgetary expenditure and functions as a reserve of funds for a specific expenditure.
The cut was revealed by the newspaper O Globo and confirmed by Sheet in consultation with budget data made available by the Federal Senate on Siga, a portal that gathers information on the Union’s financial administration. The MCTI (Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation) has not commented on the matter so far.
The SBPC (Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science) criticized the federal government’s decision. “The cut itself is outrageous and puts the country’s entire scientific and technological research system at risk,” he said in an open note. For the organization, “science has become the preferred target of the federal government, imposing a budget constraint on the sector unparalleled in the Executive Branch.”
The FNDCT is composed of 17 sectoral funds. Of them, six had their budget completely wiped out with the decision. The funds that have run out of resources finance initiatives aimed at the Amazon and waterway, biotechnology, information technology and automation projects for small and medium-sized companies in the mineral and transport sector.
A law passed last year prohibited cutting spending at the FNDCT. Thus, in order to make the cut, the federal government found another method, which is to declare part of the resources unavailable. As a result, it becomes more difficult to legally question the cut because from a budgetary point of view, resources are available, but not from a financial point of view.
The blocking of resources meant that the FNDCT budget for 2022 was 45% smaller than in 2021, when the law that prohibited cuts to the fund was not yet in effect.
The SBPC points out that the cut was heavy on the FNDCT because other portfolios managed to reduce how much they would lose in the budget. “According to the data released by the economic team, all the portfolios affected by the blockade had their budget cuts reduced, transferring the load to the MCTI”, says the note.
The end result, the text continues, is that “36.72% of the MCTI’s discretionary resources cannot be used”. Discretionary resources are those freely applied by the ministry, as opposed to mandatory ones, such as civil servants’ salaries.
In absolute terms, the FNDCT was the third budget unit that had the most resources declared unavailable for this year. In front of him are the National Health Fund, with R$ 5.7 billion, and the General Social Security Regime Fund, with R$ 2.7 billion. The difference is that in the case of the first, the amount blocked represents 3.76% of the total and in the case of the second, 0.34% of the total.
It is not now that the SBPC is complaining about the cuts in resources allocated to research and innovation. In a letter sent to the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Paulo Alvim, on June 7 this year, the entity complains about the decrease in investments in the sector.
“The progress of science will be able to develop the country and its people, eradicating misery and poverty, putting an end to hunger, which has grown in recent times, making Brazil return to the map from which it left about ten years ago”, he says. the text that is also signed by the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the National Association of Directors of Federal Institutions of Higher Education.
