Increase in the number of deputies threatens to inflate public spending and may end up in the STF
Expected for vote on Wednesday (25) in the Federal Senate, the bill that increases the number of deputies from 513 to 531 is criticized by those who work in controlling public spending. The NGO advocacy director is aware, Bruno Morassutti, bets that this increase will end up having a budget impact.
“Considering the decisions of Congress in recent times, there is a great possibility that they will not decrease, for example, the number of advisors by congressmen proportionally to adapt to the budget,” he says.
According to Morassutti, Another factor that should be questioning is what is the impact of the increase in the division of the budget regarding parliamentary amendments, an aspect that is not yet clear.
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“If there is an increase in parliamentarians, we do not know yet if they will adapt the percentage available to them in the budget to keep the same amount of reais per deputy or if they will maintain the current value. But it will certainly have an impact,” he says.
Morassutti also states that there are “several discussions that are underway in Brazilian society and may be more relevant than raising the number of deputies.”
He recalls that the Federal Supreme Court (STF) questioned the proportionality of deputies by state. “But then it should reproduce all the demographic change, not just a piece of change,” he adds.
The problem is that the bill increases the number of deputies in those states that had increased population, but does not reduce the number in those where the population decreased. Therefore, Morassutti believes this discussion can end up reaching the Supreme.
For the NGO director, this is a discussion that should not be a priority at the moment. “We have no indicative that this investment in the increase in the number of deputies will effectively have reducing the reduction of public spending or improving public spending,” he concludes.
