This week, we cover the government’s advances to revolutionize public procurement in Brazil. And we break down the tax reform bills on the table.
BREAKING
The Federal Police has launched an operation against Piauí Governor Wellington Dias, of the Workers’ Party. Alongside the state’s former Education Secretary, he is suspected of rigging procurement processes for buses for public school students, in exchange for bribes. These alleged illegalities have been under investigation since 2018.
Turning public bidding into a marketplace
The Economy Ministry is advancing a project that would radically change the way public institutions make purchasing decisions. Instead of the current bidding process of reserve price auctions — wherein the bidder with the lowest price is awarded the contract — the idea would be to create an online marketplace on which suppliers would propose their products and services, allowing the government to select companies according to its needs. A similar system is already used in Chile.
- At first, the change would be applied for cases in which bidding processes are not legally required — i.e. contracts for goods and services valued up to BRL 50,000 a year, or infrastructure services of up to BRL 100,000 a year. But the plan...