Brazilian President Michel Temer amended this week the provisional measure creating the National Public Security Fund. Signed in June, MP 841 provided for the redistribution of resources from lotteries, taking part of the budget from areas such as Culture and Sports to apply for safety.
The new provisional measure changes the values that will be allocated to each sector, recomposing the budgets of Culture and Sport that had been reduced with the old MP.
In order to meet the demands of Culture and Sport, the government reduced the amount that would be allocated to the Public Security portfolio and also decreased the increase in the values of the numerical prognostic lotteries, such as the Mega-Sena.
With the new MP, Public Safety will get a little over R$ 1 billion (US$ 266mn), Sport R$ 630 million (US$ 168mn) and Culture R$ 412 million (US$ 110mn), totaling about R$ 2 billion (US$ 533mn).
As soon as the original proposal was edited in the form of MP, the reaction to the MP from artists and sportsmen was immediate. Sports ministers Leandro Cruz and Culture Minister Sérgio Sá Leitão also issued statements shortly thereafter criticizing the government's decision. The measure was also heavily criticized on social networks by entities from both sectors.
The reissue of the MP was celebrated in the government as an achievement, in a ceremony attended by sportsmen and representatives of the area of culture, but in practice the change should leave the distribution of lottery money similar as it was before.
For an audience of about 100 people, the president said that the reissue of the MP was a way of doing justice to the areas of culture and sport.
"From the lemon, lemonade is made. Today I am very satisfied because we have overcome this difficulty. There was great anguish when we realized that I would take money from sport and culture,” said the president.
“Security goes beyond the territories of each state and has become a transnational issue. It was not enough to create (the folder of the Public security), it was necessary to give funds. We edited an MP and soon realized that it ended up reducing the funding for Sport and Culture. I immediately called my team and solved that. We're going to have lemonade tonight,” Temer concluded.
Source: GMB / UOL
