Bill 2009/21, by federal deputy Jandira Feghali, authorizes the federal government to create the “Lottery of Culture”, determining that the net income from the contests and the values of prizes not claimed by players within the statute of limitations will be allocated to the National Fund of Culture.
The deputy had already presented a project to allocate 3% of the existing lotteries to finance culture and proposed that a Federal Lottery of Culture be created by specific law. Now, to reinforce her position regarding Bill 1518/21, she presented the new project, which proposes the creation of the new modality.
Her project foresees that while the Public Health Emergency of National Importance (ESPIN) lasts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, all resources should be used exclusively to finance emergency actions aimed at the cultural sector.
The bill directs the Ministry of Economy to define the form, frequency and execution of the contests, as well as the setting of prizes, the collection of income tax on the prizes, the unit value of bets, percentages and limits of expenses with the cost and the maintenance of the lottery operator.
In her justification, Jandira Feghali says that “culture deserves to be valued, not only for its educational and social capacity, but also for strengthening cultural identity and uniting the people through their differences.”
According to her, “in addition to playing an important role in various sectors of society, investment in culture also significantly reflects on a country's economy. In 2018, the cultural sector occupied more than 5 million people, according to data from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey (Continuous PNAD), representing 5.7% of the total employed in the country. According to the Central Register of Companies, in 2017 a total of 325,400 companies were involved in activities considered as cultural, employing 1.9 million people, of which 76.1% (1.5 million) were salaried.”
The deputy also explains that “studies by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation show that the resources referring to the cultural sector represent 2.64% of the GDP, but the pandemic generated a series of losses where 86.6% of the companies had a drop in revenues from March 2020; 63.4% of companies had to stop their activities; 42.1% had projects canceled; 19.3% of the firms made layoffs due to the crisis generated by the pandemic.”
According to Feghali, the sector will only resume the 2019 GDP generation level in 2022, "generating an estimated loss in the 2020-2021 biennium of R$69.2 billion (US$ 13.3b), a drop of 18.2% in the period," she justified in the presentation of the bill and in the request for support to it by the other deputies.
Source: GMB
