Source: O Povo Online - Fortaleza / CE - 04/09/2010

Permission holder Amarildo Fonseca da Silva, 45, has worked in the center of Fortaleza for 37 years. It is on the privileged sidewalk of Rua Barão do Rio Branco, at number 1054. Here is the exercise of the father: street vendor. The person who makes a profit, R $ 1,3 thousand per month, “can live,” he says, next to his daughter. Like him, around 10 people at the Center work in the informal sector. The situation is assessed as a serious socioeconomic problem for the Capital and imposes a challenge on the City Hall: formalization with urban planning.

Ceará has a strong vocation for the trade and services sectors. The two branches, together, were one of the main responsible for the 8,92% growth in the State's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2010, compared to the same period in 2009.

The Fortaleza Center is the “gold mine” for generating employment and income, in addition to being a source of revenue for the state and municipal public coffers. The neighborhood generates about 5,6% of all the Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS) of the State and maintains, on average, 68,5 thousand direct jobs, according to the Entrepreneurs Association of the Center of Fortaleza (Ascefort).

The materialization of good results in the Center, however, hides the actors that move wealth outside the law. Street vendors - or street vendors - circulate a lot of cash in kind, but they are outside official statistics, as they are not constituted companies and, therefore, do not account for their products. They live in the so-called underground economy.

When the informal worker carries out his activity in a public place without the proper authorization, it contributes to the disorderly occupation of the space of common use by the population. “Both the Federal Constitution, the Civil Code, and the Organic Law of the Municipality, prohibit this use of public space, which is imprescriptible, unenforceable and not subject to adverse possession, so strong is the protection over public goods”, explains the titleholder from the Regional Executive Secretariat of the Center of Fortaleza (Sercefor), Luiza Perdigão.

She comments that, even if there is formalization, the problem is not solved, because permission is required to continue exercising the function in public places. The secretary gave an interview to O POVO and revealed details hitherto unknown about the Center's reorganization project.

Speaking in unison with Luiza Perdigão is the Finance Secretary of Fortaleza, Alexandre Cialdini. He summarizes the effort to combat informal work that he is developing: “We want to do urban reorganization with formalization, mainly through the Individual Entrepreneur (EI) program. This is a formula that must be pursued. There is no point in being dissociated ”, he declares.

Losses

It is not only the collection and public spaces that are affected by the exercise of informal work. The movement of goods and services of dubious quality are also a consequence of informal work, recalls Cialdini.

For him, however, the main imbroglio is the fact that nothing is known about these people, who they are and where they come from. This makes it difficult to carry out public policies aimed at this segment of society.

POVO begins a series of reports on the informal economy and efforts to give economic and urban order in Fortaleza. The main actors involved in this process were heard, from street vendors to the architect who contributed to the successful organization of street commerce in Curitiba, capital of Paraná. The promise of the City Hall of Fortaleza is an end to this situation even in this municipal management.