The Budget Committee approves a project that opens a loophole to block the resources of the Science and Technology Fund | Policy

The FNDCT is managed by a council linked to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovations. The fund aims to finance innovation and scientific and technological development to enhance the economic and social development of the country.

Last year, he entered into a law prohibiting the withholding of FNDCT resources. However, the draft approved by the commission on Wednesday (6) says that these provisions, approved last year and included in the 2007 law, “do not prevent the implementation of budget changes involving a reduction in the allocations to the National Fund for Scientific, Scientific and Technological Development – FNDCT”.

The mechanism, called by the economic term ’emergency’, is a procedure to be carried out by the executive branch to contain expenditures. The action consists in the government blocking the implementation of part of the budget due to the expectation that there will not be enough revenue.

In the opinion of congressional technicians, the proposal “interferes” with existing legislation – which cannot be done through the Budget Guidelines Act (LDO).

The text, which changes the LDO this year, still needs to go through a joint vote of parliamentarians in a session of Congress, which is scheduled for next Friday (8).

According to the technicians, if approved in a session of Congress, the executive branch would have a device that would allow the FNDCT value to be restricted. With this, the government can then send a new bill to Congress to reallocate amounts from the fund’s budget. Technicians still do not have an assessment of the amount of the ban.

The Joint Technical Note from the Senate Budgets, Inspection and Oversight and the Chamber’s Budget and Financial Inspection states that the law prohibiting the FNDCT blockade “does not permit the adoption of any measure intended to prevent the full implementation of the authorized expenditures within the scope of the FNDCT”.

Also, according to the note, the LDO “has no power to alter this ‘compulsory implementation’, as it is specified in the specific statute for that fund.”

Representative Angela Amim (PP-SC), by means of a suppressive amendment, attempted to withdraw the ruling, but was defeated. According to it, the device can configure the loss 2.5 billion Brazilian reals for science and technology And the “Invalidation of all the benefits that the passage brings” to the law prohibiting emergency.

At the CMO session on Wednesday (6), opposition MPs criticized the text and warned of the danger of a lack of funds in the fund.

“I can’t help but put it here for now when it comes to reducing investment in science and technology… even if it’s a deputy [Carlos Henrique] Jaguin [relator da matéria] He said – and if he said it, it is true, there is no doubt – that this money will be spent because it could not be spent, and it could not have been spent because of the government’s inefficiency, because the universities are closing down. Rep. Inoue Phiri (PT-PR) said federal universities don’t even have the money to buy toilet paper, and they can’t pay guards and cleaning staff.

“We condemn Brazil for losing space in the international sphere, a space that has been occupied for a long time,” the parliamentarian said.

The same joint memorandum issued by the House and Senate advisory offices assesses another provision of the bill as “reckless.”

The text enables, in 2022, the settlement of “remaining payable” that has not been processed in the past year to creditors other than those initially indicated. Remaining amounts payable are committed expenses that have not been paid by the end of the fiscal year.

According to the technical document, this change would be “a disguised extension of the validity period of the budgets, and then the binding of the commitment memorandum – a document which can no doubt be removed as a prerequisite for achieving public expenditure – to the creditor is not the original, but an illegitimate alternative”.

“As noted, the proposed text does not provide a deadline for adjustments affecting fiscal year 2021, and the current LDO does not allow any changes after January 30,” the note says.

According to the document, this measure is not supported by the constitution.

Nouveau MPs criticized the proposal during the CMO vote.

“We understand that it goes against even Brazil’s fiscal rules. The possibility of a creditor changing the pledge note is unacceptable. This is very reckless,” said MP Marcel Van Hatem (NOVO-LOL). ).

“In the name of transparency in the use of public resources and expenditures that must be examined by the entire population, in a very transparent manner, we are against PLN 17 [projeto analisado]The deputy said.

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