Investigation into Leaf shows the harmful effects of the lack of control over parliamentary amendments which, since 2015, when their execution became mandatory, have taken up increasingly large slices of the federal budget, without transparency or technical application criteria.
Over the past ten years, deputies and senators have spent more than 900 million reais through this mechanism to purchase at least 1,649 heavy machines that have been delivered to 467 municipalities in the legal Amazon.
According to experts, this type of machinery – such as tracked and rubber tractors, graders and road rollers – is typically used to remove vegetation and open roads.
This is public money invested in works with a potential impact on the environment. Its execution must therefore be subject to rigorous evaluation to avoid distortions. But that’s not what you see.
Of the total amount, 30% of the funds (R$319 million) and 31% of the machines (507) went only to Rondônia, which, since 2015, has the highest rate of deforestation proportional to the territory in the region, with 5.1% of its area devastated (12 thousand km²), according to the National Institute for Space Research. Next come Mato Grosso (R$145.8 million) and Acre (R$117.8 million).
Among the equipment acquired for Rondônia, the capital Porto Velho received 329, a notable gap compared to the two other cities that obtained more heavy machinery in the region, Cuiabá (67) and Rio Branco (30).
The data raises doubts about whether resources have been directed to places and populations that actually need them.
Other problems are the possible irregular use of machinery in the mines, as Ibama points out, and favoritism. Federal deputy Zezinho Barbary (PP-AC) is using his share of the funds to regularize work on a road that crosses his family’s land, opened due to illegal deforestation when he was mayor of Porto Walter (AC).
The mandatory implementation of the amendments has opened a Pandora’s box in the budget. From 2015 to 2024, 220 billion reais were committed, or 173 billion reais more than if the amount was adjusted for inflation only.
This is an unprecedented volume that generally serves the political interests of members of Congress for parochial work, instead of being rationally allocated to priority areas.
Putting an end to this madness will require a political and institutional understanding between the three powers, which is not on the horizon for the moment. Apparently, more scandals await us.
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