BRAZIL CONGRESS WEEK-Pension reform drags on
Reuters, Monday, March 16, 1998 at 19:33
By William Schomberg
BRASILIA, March 16 (Reuters) - The Brazilian government
faced a testing week in Congress as it attempted to speed up
its long-awaited -- and fiscally crucial -- social security
reform bill, legislative officials said Monday.
The Chamber of Deputies approved the bill itself in a first
full vote in January. But 28 proposed alterations to its text
have yet to be dealt with.
Of those amendments, two are considered a threat to the
cost-cutting potential of the reform -- one which would block
the introduction of minimum retirement ages, and another which
seeks to keep parity between civil service salaries and
pensions.
All the amendments must be voted before the lower house can
hold a second full ballot on the bill. A further but smaller
round of amendments would then have to be voted before the
reform finally clears Congress, three years after being
submitted.
In a bid to speed up the reform's progress, Chamber of
Deputies president Michel Temer took the unusual step of
calling voting sessions from Tuesday morning through Thursday
afternoon.
Normally, lawmakers only show up in the capital Tuesday
around midday and most are flying back to their home states
within 48 hours.
Temer told reporters, however, that the voting on the
amendments might drag into next week.
The government needs three-fifths majorities to kill the
proposed changes to the bill and whips were reported to be
carefully calculating support to avoid an upset.
Officials have said they expect the social security reform
bill to clear Congress around mid-April.
The bill would put a check on a widening deficit in
Brazil's public social security system which officials say is
set to pass $5.0 billion this year.
The government's other important fiscal reform, of the
civil service, was approved by the Senate in final vote last
week.
But both reforms will require complementary legislation
before they can be fully implemented.
The other major event of this week in Congress was the
hotly awaited reappearance of lawmaker Sergio Naya, a
construction mogul whose luxury apartment block in Rio de
Janeiro collapsed in February killing eight people.
Naya was due to testify in a committee mulling his
expulsion from Congress, a move which would strip him of
parliamentary immunity and allow prosecutors to put him in
court.
National outrage over the Naya case has prompted lawmakers
to begin considering a bill which would reduce the scope of
parliamentary immunity.
This week may also see a committee-level vote on a bill
which would make it easier to approve constitutional reforms of
the tax and party political systems in a special year-long
session of Congress starting January 1999.
Another bill facing a possible panel vote in the Chamber of
Deputies would allow foreign companies into Brazil's currently
protected health insurance market.
william.schomberg@reuters.com))
Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service |
