House full of people

March 20th, 2010 | Karlos Kohlbach, Katia Brembatti, James Alberti e Gabriel Tabatcheik

How is possible 125 employees work in a space of approximately 200 square meters? The crossing of published information in more than 700 official diaries of Legislative Assembly of Paraná with the House’s employers list, published last year, allowed establish the work place of hundreds of Legislative employers. And the result of this raising, done by Gazeta do Povo and RPCTV, indicates that direction departments of Assembly – the presidency, the general direction and the first secretary – are full of people.

Charged by congressman Alexandre Curi (PMDB), the first secretary of Assembly is the office with more employers. There are at least 125 employers to his disposal, according to the raising of this report. In theory, these employers should be all working in a room around 200 square meters of this office inside of the Assembly’s headquarters, in Curitiba.

The state congressman Nereu Moura (PMDB), ex-first-secretary of the House, says that this secretary has a work essentially administrative, so doesn’t make political activity to justify the necessity of having employers working in electoral basis inside the state – as happens with employers from parliamentary offices. Moura occupied this charge at Legislative until the end of 2006. He assures that never had 100 employers under his responsibility.

The own Assembly, in some way, admits that the employers number placed at first-secretary is high. The Law of House’s Functions Plan, approved in December of last year by state congressman and started to be valid yesterday, forecast that the secretary must have only 14 employers. Today, thus, would have 9 times more than the own number of parliamentarians understand be necessary only in three months.
 
Presidency and General Direction

By new law, the presidency office from Assembly needs to have maximum of 15 employers. By the way, the available structure for congressman Nelson Justus (DEM) exercise the House’s presidency have 73 people, according to report’s raising. The number is 5 times higher than the forecast.

Another structure with extra “fat” is the House General Administration, headed, until last week, by Abib Miguel, who requested a temporary leave. The law commands that the staff of the General Administration Office must not exceed a number of 10 employees, but the Office employs now at least 21 people.

The House Presidency, General Administration and First-Secretary offices have been contacted by Gazeta do Povo, but the people responsible for each office didn’t want to make any comments about the case.

Incomplete List

The complete Legislative Assembly of the State of Parana payroll, made public on April, 1st 2009, didn’t reveal the job, the position and the place of work of the House personnel. Although incomplete, the roll allowed Gazeta do Povo to create a partial organization chart of the House crosschecking information with the data found in more than 700 Assembly Daily Files, enacted from 1998 to March 2009.

Yet, based on the payroll divulged last year it was not possible to identify in which sector work 1,413 of the 2,457 House employees. No work records of these extra employees could be found in the files from 2006 to 2009.

Based on official records, Gazeta do Povo has been able to locate the place of work of 1,044 House employees, though. If they were transferred to other area, this decision wasn’t published in the files – at least not in the official ones, since the House publishes single page unnumbered files, not available for consultation – which renders it impossible for regular citizens to keep an eye on the House.