Source: Valor Econômico, 18/09/2007

The government of the State of Rio will adopt the electronic point by means of digital printing on biometric machines to control the frequency of public servants. "When we arrived, there were many cases of civil servants who worked every other day and others who did not work the hours," said the Chief of Staff, Regis Fichtner.

The initiative will begin to be applied at the Guanabara Palace, seat of the State government, at the Laranjeiras Palace, official residence of Governor Sérgio Cabral (PMDB), and at the representation of the Rio government in Brasília. Yesterday, the Casa Civil also announced the cut of 120 civil servants who held commissioned positions or were retired and returned to the State as service providers, equivalent to 15% of the secretariat's staff. “When we started to demand that schedules be respected, we found that there was no job for everyone. There were too many servers, ”said the secretary.

Fichtner foresees savings of R $ 4 million in a period of one year only with the dismissals - about 10% of the budget with secretariat personnel - and does not rule out further cuts in his portfolio. He also estimates spending R $ 1 million less per year on the rationalization of activities, such as the reduction of structures that did the same work and of the car fleet.

The staff cut and frequency control are part of a modernization and efficiency improvement project for the state government and will be adopted by the other government departments in Rio. The project, which should start this month in the Planning, Education portfolio and Fazenda, received consultancy from the Instituto de Desenvolvimento Gerencial (INDG), a company that has already provided services to improve the efficiency of the Minas Gerais government, in the management of Aécio Neves (PDSB).

The modernization of state management also includes greater computerization and professional training. "We found the secretary in the Stone Age," said the secretary.

The government of Rio has made a fiscal adjustment to balance the accounts and to close the deficit between expenses and revenues of R $ 1,5 billion that it found at the beginning of the year when it received the State of the ex-governor Rosinha Matheus (PMDB). In the personnel area, 30% of employees who were in commissioned positions were cut.

Until December of this year, 2 thousand outsourced servers from Nuseg will be dismissed, a core of labor supply from the State University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj). Employment contracts with Nuseg were considered illegal by the Rio de Janeiro State Court of Auditors (TCE-RJ) and by the State Prosecutor's Office.