LatinNews Daily Report - 01 May 2013

POLITICS | Campos does his homework in Pernambuco. A day after President Dilma Rousseff insisted on her plan to send to the federal congress a bill to legally require all state and municipalities to dedicate 100% of future oil royalties to education, the state governor of Pernambuco, Eduardo Campos, announced a bill to that effect in his home state. Campos, leader of the government-allied Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB), is considering a presidential bid of his own in 2014, when Rousseff is expected to seek a second consecutive term. To that end his latest move looked imminently opportunistic but it also allows him to continue to pay lip service to the alliance with the federal government. Pernambuco, a non-oil producing state, currently receives about R$15m (US$7.5m) a year in oil royalties, but this could rise to an estimated R$350m (US$157m) a year under pending new oil royalties legislation that re-distributes these between the three main producing states and the rest of the country (22 states plus the federal district). The legislation is currently before the supreme court following an appeal by the three producing states. Campos said that only through investment in education could Brazil “break the factories of poverty, inequality and discrimination” still existing in the country. The Pernambuco state assembly approved the draft bill unanimously. The state’s current annual education budget is R$3.5bn (US$1.7m).

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