Manaus City Hall spends more than twice as much on Communication per capita as the AM Government

Gabriel Abreu – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The Manaus City Hall spent, from January to October of this year, the first of Mayor David Almeida’s administration, R$ 95,45 million with institutional communication, through the Municipal Department of Communication (Semcom), headed by journalist Emerson Quaresma.

The amount corresponds to R$ 42,31 per inhabitant of the capital, more than double what the State of Amazonas applied, per inhabitant, in the same area. The information is the result of the crossing of data between the Transparency portals of each sphere and statistics from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

According to the Transparency Portal of Manaus City Hall, Semcom accumulates expenses of R$ 95.45 million in 2021. Divided by the number of inhabitants of Manaus, which, according to IBGE projection, is 2,255,903, comes to R$ 42.31 per person, or 106.5% more than the R$ 20.48 applied by the State, from the State Department of Communication (Secom). The report considered only the amounts paid.

Semcom is the department responsible for the institutional campaigns of the Manaus City Hall, such as TV spots about the Executive’s achievements, educational campaigns about health, etc. Other advertising pieces are also developed, such as radio spots and campaigns for social networks, as well as the production of journalistic texts, among others.

The amount employed in Semcom draws attention, considering that other bodies of significant importance to the Municipal Executive received much lower values. The Municipal Institute of Urban Planning (Implurb), essential body for Manaus, a city that, currently, lives a chaotic day to day due to disorderly growth, employed R$ 17.6 million in the maintenance of public policies developed by him, equivalent to 18% of what was allocated to the maintenance of Semcom.

The Environment area received just over R$ 12.44 million in investments, less than 13% of what was spent on Communication. The Municipal Department of Agriculture and Supply accumulated R$ 11.62 million in payments, according to the Transparency portal of the Manaus City Hall.

From January to October, the payments ranged from R$ 93.6 thousand in January, to R$ 17.25 million in September. The lowest amount spent was exactly in the month in which Manaus experienced the second peak of the pandemic Covid-19, with the arrival of variant P.1, which led to an exponential increase in cases and deaths from the disease.

Follow the payments, month by month by Semcom

January – R$ 93,650
February – R$ 2,706,809
March – R$ 7,541,489
April – R$ 6,424,979
May – R$ 7,299,825
June – R$ 8,320,149
July – R$ 16,237,376
August – R$ 14,905,686
September – R$ 17,670,610
October – R$ 14,670,610
November (up to the 8th) – R$ 2,277,860

No response

The reporter contacted the Municipal Department of Communication to find out how and in what way these amounts are invested, but is still awaiting a position. Among the questions, the report seeks to know how the procedures are made for the dissemination of the actions of the Manaus City Hall; how are defined the vehicles for the dissemination of these actions; who are these partners and what other type of communication services receive values from Semcom?