Source: Exame - Print Edition - 23/07/2009

More than 40 years ago, before the man stepped on the moon, the then Minister of Planning, Hélio Beltrão, took the first steps of a reform that helped to simplify the Brazilian bureaucracy. It is from 1968 the decree of his authorship that dispenses the recognition of signature in documents signed in the presence of a public official. Later, in 1979, another decree, also from Beltrão, already at the head of the Ministry of Bureaucratization, ended the certificates of good record and poverty, among other absurd and humiliating demands imposed on Brazilians. The same law defined that the authentication of the copy of a document was done by the server to whom the paper had to be delivered. However, since then, instead of being simplified, the Brazilian bureaucracy has only worsened. After three decades, much of the progress made by Beltrão has been undermined. Now, on July 20, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's anteroom has arrived at a draft decree that could mean the resumption of the bureaucratization agenda. Until the closing of this edition, the decree was awaiting presidential signature.

In addition to ratifying simplification measures established in the past, but which are no longer complied with by various areas of the federal administration - such as the waiver of signature recognition and document authentication in certain situations -, the project has the merit of assigning responsibilities to the government , which comfortably insists on transferring them to citizens. If the decree is signed, federal agencies will no longer be able to demand the presentation of certificates and certificates issued by other federal agencies. Today, to get a passport, a document issued by the Federal Police, citizens have to prove that they are up to date with the Electoral Justice, another federal agency. It is a fact that this type of change will not happen overnight. The law will only be put into practice when federal agencies are able to "talk" to each other. In addition to the presidential order, the law depends on the integration of public sector databases, something relatively simple, considering the stage of technology. After the signature of the president - which will take place shortly, according to the Ministry of Planning -, the federal agencies will have one year to adapt to the new rules.

Another front in which the decree advances is the creation of the Charter of Services to the Citizen, a kind of rights manual in relation to the government. Such letter - which must be offered to the public at the ticket counters and published on the website of Organs federal agencies - will have to display information such as the deadline for the fulfillment of the service and the telephone number of the ombudsman for any complaints about the agency. "The objective is to make the relationship with the citizen transparent, making it clear that the government also meets the deadline and has commitments to serve the public," says Marcelo Viana, secretary of management at the Ministry of Planning. It is true that we are nowhere near a shock against bureaucracy. The decree that awaits President Lula's signature only has an effect on federal agencies. From this angle, its scope is limited, since people make much more use of municipal and state bureaucracy than that of federal agencies. Nor will the new law change the rules enforced by companies. However, the integration of federal agencies should facilitate - and greatly - the path for future measures to reduce bureaucracy in relations with the business environment.

The good news is that, although timidly, initiatives to simplify bureaucracy multiply across the country. In Maceió it is already possible to register a company in a week. The state of São Paulo has started to waive the need for signature recognition in several situations since January 2008. This initiative has been added to that of Poupatempo, a program for centralizing citizen service at service stations that has existed since 1996 and which today has already been copied by several states and cities. The current target of the São Paulo bureaucratization program, led by the state secretary for Employment and Labor, Guilherme Afif Domingos, is to reduce the time required for the formalization of companies. "Until the beginning of 2010, the average for opening a business in São Paulo will be 15 days," says Afif. Currently, the average term in the country is five months, which puts Brazil in the 125th worst position in the World Bank's Doing Business ranking, which classifies the business environment in 181 countries.

Despite the positive signs, it is necessary to move forward with more speed and maintain the persistence in attacking the “bureaucracy”. “Bureaucracy is like weed, it is always being born”, says Antônio Marcos Umbelino Lôbo, lawyer and member of the Instituto Hélio Beltrão, a non-governmental organization dedicated to reducing the country's bureaucracy. According to him, the decree of the 70s died because, over time, bureaucrats created new rules, demanding, for example, a firm recognized in a notary public, a rule previously banned. “Measures against bureaucracy only catch on with wide publicity among the population,” says Lôbo. In addition, governments must hammer out the novelty among civil servants and the Federal Comptroller General must guarantee compliance with the rules. Anyway, it is not enough to sign the decree. You need to make it work.