EDITORIAL – Works: the visible and the transparency

By Márcia Guimarães – From Cenarium

One of the most visible deliverables in a mayor’s administration is infrastructure works. These usually draw attention — a visibility not always accompanied by proper transparency. This is what happens, for example, with the funds managed by the Municipal Secretariat of Infrastructure of Manaus (Seminf) in 2024, when the department paid R$ 1.2 billion to companies for the provision of services. At the very least, the significant amount raises eyebrows, while many of the District Offices of Works, branch offices of the department, are literally falling apart.

For the cover story of this edition, we investigated the Transparency Portal of the Municipality to check the payments made by Seminf to companies providing services related to works and infrastructure, and we also visited ten of the 18 District Offices of Works in Manaus. On one hand, there are the million-dollar payments — part of contracts that even reach the billion mark — concentrated among five companies with the highest amounts. On the other hand, there are branch offices with broken or collapsing walls, accumulated garbage, and unused machinery being “swallowed” by vegetation. The scenario denotes neglect.

While payments are made and the District Offices of Works show signs of abandonment, at the end of the line of public service delivery is a population that complains about potholed streets and other problems, such as lack of drainage and basic sanitation, especially in the city’s outskirts. In Grande Vitória, in the East Zone of the city, the potholes cause traffic accidents. In Praça 14, in the South Zone, they hinder garbage collection, which piles up and ends up favoring flooding during heavy rains.

The payments are of significant amounts, the district offices have been forgotten in terms of renovation or maintenance of their structures, and there is a lack of services reaching the entirety of the city. At the very least, it’s a situation that raises doubts about the proper use of public funds.

On the Transparency Portal, not everything is very clear. It takes patience and a certain level of experience to locate and understand the information. Unfortunately, for the general population, this becomes, in many cases, indecipherable. Here lies one of our missions: to help facilitate access to public information. In doing so, we hope not only that residents of Manaus become aware of the payments and the conditions of the District Offices of Works, but also that the oversight bodies — which are responsible for inspection — remain vigilant.

The subject was the cover story and special news item in the new edition of CENARIUM MAGAZINE.

Translated from Portuguese by Gustô Alves