It's expensive.
The desperation of the Goiás government to change its image, tarnished by a record disapproval rating of 48,90%, is causing taxpayers to foot a hefty bill of nearly R$ 200 million.
"Regarding the publicity of acts, programs, and works completed by the Public Administration, it should be noted that this will only be permitted if it has an educational, informative, or social guidance objective, prohibiting the personal promotion of authorities or public servants through the dissemination of names, symbols, and images." Well. Government communication, between us, is something that is rarely seen applied as required by the Constitution.
Law ignored
The mere display of a government logo already constitutes a violation of the principle of "Impartiality," since these logos display colors and messages that make the official propaganda explicitly personalistic.
Furthermore, there is an old practice that has long been known within public regulatory bodies: the famous "commitments" involving advertisements that justify newspaper pages, TV minutes, and radio hours in the promotion of a public official. All legal, if it weren't an exchange between advertiser and media outlets.
Artwork or publicity?
A government that feels committed to the population must weigh what is most important: investing public resources in infrastructure and benefits or spending on propaganda? In Goiás, in 2011 alone, the percentage of spending on investment and communication exceeded 40%. Let's give an example.
It's more or less like someone having a thousand reais to fix up their house and spending R$600 on the renovation and the remaining R$400 on a party to announce that they renovated the house. In my house; in your house; and in many people's houses, this is considered superfluous. Not in Goiás.
Is recovery possible?
Immediately after the announcement of the 48,90% disapproval rating, the Government of Goiás sought to impose a swift response, which, in addition to ostentatious announcements of new benefits and projects, also included a kind of boost to the advertising budget: one example is the reinforcement of funds for Agecom – the Goiás Communication Agency – with R$ 20 million, originating from Fomentar – the Fund for the Promotion of Economic and Social Development of Goiás. (Official Gazette - 05/17/21 - No. 21.349 – Budgetary decrees for the opening of supplementary credit of resources originating from Fomentar, numbers 141, R$ 5 million and 142 R$ 15 million, of 05/14/21, signed by the Governor of Goiás).
I wonder: what does the poor evaluation of the government have to do with me or you? Apparently, everything. Since our taxes are being channeled into the communications sector, not into infrastructure investments; or health; or education; or even to provide benefits to micro and small business owners and entrepreneurs. I believe that the Fomentar program should serve, at least, this nobler purpose.
The most complicated aspect of this allocation of resources is the following: this money is available in budget line 04 122 1142 1.302 – Execution of Special Development Projects – Royalty Resources. The question remains: what does communication have to do with this? Little or nothing, since we have no certainty that these resources will be spent to promote development through official advertising.
I believe that, by spending excessively in this way, the Government of Goiás will have even more difficulty in recovering its image.
Gercyley Batista is a journalist and maintains the blog The Observationistin Goiânia