Unprotected borders, irresponsible government
Article on the shortage of federal police officers at Brazil's borders on the eve of the 2016 Olympics.
Translated from the original.
By Fábio Medina Osório
Lawyer and doctor in Administrative Law from the Complutense University of Madrid
The data on the shortage of police officers on our borders are alarming, particularly when one considers the prospect of the Olympic Games in August 2016 in Brazil. Suffice it to recall that, in all, we currently have little more than one thousand federal police officers to cover 24 thousand km of border – the United States has a force twenty times larger to cover a border region seven times smaller. Such a deficit, as is known, favors the offenses of smuggling, arms and drug trafficking, organized transnational crime, and terrorism.
A government without protected borders is, as is well known, vulnerable to every kind of attack. The Federal Police budget suffered cuts of around R$ 133 million for 2016, which represents a reduction of about 13% of the force's funding. The institution, it seems, has been suffering retaliation from the federal government, perhaps because of the strategic and republican initiatives it has adopted for the good of the country, in investigations against powerful figures at the highest echelons of power.
Symptomatic, then, is the progress of public civil action No. 5010354-05.2014.404.7002/PR, in the 1st Federal Court of Foz do Iguaçu, which seeks, in short, the drawing up of a specific plan for effective oversight of Lake Itaipu and the Paraná River, as well as a real increase in police personnel, so as to adequately protect the border area, today widely used for the commission of various crimes.
What is impressive, however, is that, despite a decision imposing on the Union the obligation to take the steps necessary to meet the request of the Federal Public Prosecution Service, the Minister of Justice has, so far, failed to comply with that judicial order, resorting for that purpose to procedural remedies. Everything indicates, moreover, that the federal government and the Ministry of Justice likewise do not intend to fulfill a promise made in 2011, provided for in the national border plan, to double the number of Federal Police, Federal Highway Police and National Public Security Force agents working in those regions.
It is inevitable to note, in this context, that political agents of the federal government may be committing functional offenses associated with serious omissions, as a result of inexcusable failures in the oversight of our country's borders. So-called administrative improbity, defined in Law 8,429/92, is characterized not only by corruption, but also by public mismanagement, and above all by negligent omissions.
Likewise, impeachable offenses may arise, at the highest levels of the Republic, when there is noncompliance with court orders under the pretext of occupying discretionary spaces. It is no coincidence that on this March 3, the national day to combat smuggling, it is worth recalling that Brazil suffers annual losses on the order of 115 billion reais – between 2014 and 2015 there was a 15% increase in these losses – as a consequence of this offense, defined in art. 334-A of the Brazilian Criminal Code, whose damage to the economy, public health, free competition and the economic order is immense.
What has the federal government done to combat smuggling in Brazil? Very little, so much so that it was the target of an audit by the Federal Court of Accounts in 2015, whose conclusion brings an extensive list of recommendations to government bodies and the order to the Civil House that, within 180 days, counted from receipt of the communication, it submit to that Court an action plan covering the measures necessary to implement improvements in the national border strip.
The deadline indicated by the TCU is near its end, as are the excuses for so much omission…