Bolsonaro’s Financial Suffocation Begins to Hit Brazil’s Sciences

(Video Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)

By Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Brazilian government has blocked research and universities money to adjust the spending ceiling. Firstly, universities will not be able to cover water and energy costs. After that, service contracts (such as cleaning and security) will no longer be fulfilled.

Next, university restaurants will be out of resources. Programs to assist impoverished students are also threatened. And if the measure is not revised, the cut will compromise university activities already in the second half of this year.

This is a summary of the first effects of Bolsonaro’s financial suffocation on education and science in Brazil, published by several institutions such as the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), which suffered a blocking of 30 percent of its funding, in R$48 (US$12) million.

The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), which suffered a suspension of 41 percent of the funds earmarked for maintenance, in the amount of R$114 (US$28) million, has also pointed to the blocking of resources for investments which hampers the development of works and the purchase of equipment for laboratories and hospitals.

“For five years the University has been suffering cuts and contingencies without replacement. In corrected figures, the difference between the 2014 and the 2019 budgets is more than R$200 (US$50) million,” said the UFRJ.

The Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) has also expressed itself: “There is no administrative efficiency that overcomes a cut this size, especially given the successive budget restrictions of recent years,” said dean Sandra Regina Goulart Almeida in a statement.

The measure may also cause the discontinuity of contracts with outsourced companies, which will also raise the degrading unemployment rates of the state of Minas Gerais and the country.

When on March 29th, the Federal Government published Decree Nr. 9.741, announcing the freezing of R$29.6 (US$7,25) billion of Federal funds, in order to adapt the accounts to the Fiscal Responsibility Law and to the primary result targets and spending ceiling, it was not clear what would be the practical effects of this measure in the area of education and science.

With these cutbacks, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MCTIC) lost 41.9 percent of its resources. Of the estimated R$5.079 (US$1,25) billion, there was a blockage of
R$2.132 billion. From the Education budget of R$149 billion, R$5.8 billion in non-compulsory expenses were contingent by this decree.

The Ministry of Economy retreated and released about R$3.6 billion to attend urgent needs of five ministries. By decree published in the Official Gazette, on Thursday, May 2nd, the MCTIC managed to recover R$300 million in funds.

The dismantling of national science is the subject of specialized foreign publications such as Nature and Science.

Working in a situation of scarcity of resources, however, has always been seen as the rule among Brazilian researchers.

“I finished my doctorate and came to Federal de Goiás in 1994. It’s always been hard. We have never had many resources,” says Professor José Alexandre Felizola Diniz Filho, of the Federal University of Goiás (UFG), one of the pioneers in the research of evolution and ecology in the country.

The years of economic boom, especially in former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s second government and Dilma Rousseff’s first government, eventually broke this logic.

“The field of science and technology has grown, we’ve trained thousands of doctors… But now we are in an economic recession again,” says Diniz.