O controle externo na aplicação de royalties do petróleo em municípios brasileiros

Abstract

This study presents an evaluation of the external control exercised by the Courts of Auditors in the application of royalties and special oil participation in Brazilian municipalities, financial compensation due for the exploitation of oil reserves in Brazilian territory and transferred by the Union. By associating the concepts of fiscal federalism, incrementalism, externality theory, transparency, accountability, oil revenues, and the public budget system, from the point of view of the relationship between planning and control, sought to establish the theoretical bases for the analyzes carried out, which aimed to map the public policies that have been financed with these resources, to raise aspects of public governance related to the application of these resources, to identify the external control instruments used and to analyze the previous external control opinions on the annual accounts of the beneficiary municipalities. In this sense, based on applied research, quantitative treatment of the collected data has been made, phase denominated 1st stage, related to the estimation of revenues, intergovernmental transfers and the costing of current expenses, in particular, expenses with personnel and charges, made available by the Beneficiary municipalities to the state accounts courts, as determined by the Fiscal Responsibility Law. As a result, the low quality of revenue estimates, the representative evolution of the share of oil revenues in total revenue and the cost of personnel expenses and charges in annual budgets were identified. In the 2nd stage of the research, characterized by a qualitative approach, through content analysis of previous opinions issued by the external control over the annual accounts of the beneficiary municipalities, in comparison with the results obtained in the first stage of the research, an evaluation of the performance of the external control was performed, regarding aspects related to legal compliance, compliance with aspects related to transparency and accountability, and the opportunity to improve public administration. As a result of the evaluation, it was identified that the use of oil revenues in the costing of personnel expenses and charges is endorsed by the Court of Auditors of the State of Rio de Janeiro, that these revenues are not formally associated with the execution of any public policy, that there is no evaluation of external control as to the estimates and allocation of these revenues, that there is no theoretical basis that supports the analysis of the prior opinions issued and that there is no issuance of recommendations for improvement or creation of municipal legislation that regulates the application and allocation of these financial compensation, due to the omission of the federal legislation that instituted them.