The Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Alerj) filed a complaint this Thursday (23) with the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) regarding the concession of Santos Dumont Airport, in the state capital. The objective is to suspend the bidding, organized by the National Civil Assessment Agency (Anac), and cancel the notice.
The eight-page request is signed by the president of Alerj, deputy André Ceciliano (PT), and by the attorney general of the state legislature, Rodrigo Lourenço.
For weeks, Rio de Janeiro authorities at different levels have criticized the process, defending the need to establish a limit on the number of flights in the Santos Dumont.
The objective of the measure is to prevent the emptying of the Tom Jobim International Airport, on Ilha do Governador, known as Galeão.
In the piece, the congressman recalls that Guanabara Bay, bordered by Santos Dumont, has been an area of permanent preservation since 1989. The legislation allows construction in such areas, as long as there are no alternatives.
“But we have an alternative, which is Galeão itself, located less than 20 kilometers away. It is equipment that cannot be wasted, scrapped, causing Rio de Janeiro to lose international flights. With this public notice, Rio de Janeiro is losing, but the Union, which owns Santos Dumont, is also lost,” said Ceciliano.
Galeão is a federal airport, like Santos Dumont, and is granted to the private sector until 2035. The concessionaire that took over the complex in 2010 made a series of interventions at the site, due to contractual demands. Among them, the construction of the South Pier, an expansion of Terminal 2, covering 100,000 square meters.
The action at TCU is a second initiative by Alerj to try to block the Santos Dumont concession notice. The first was a legislative decree approved in plenary on the 16th. It cancels an environmental license for the expansion of the airport’s runways.
Critics of the Santos Dumont concession model understand that the government has overloaded the airport, which has led to the emptying of Galeão.
The increase in the number of flights from the downtown Rio de Janeiro complex would aim to boost the grant paid by a possible concessionaire in the bidding process.
Last Wednesday (22), the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Pais (PSD), had already announced that it would sue TCU against the notice of Anac.
The draft, approved on Tuesday by the agency, includes another 15 airports, such as Congonhas, in São Paulo. The federal government’s forecast is to hold the auction in the first half of next year.
On Wednesday, the Federation of Industries of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Firjan) released a study according to which the coordinated action between the two airports, which would work in a complementary manner, could result in an increase of R$ 4.6 billion to the Gross Domestic Product (START) of the state per year. The figure would represent 0.6% of the total GDP, according to the projection of the industrial entity.
Wanted, the Ministry of Economy and ANAC have not manifested themselves so far.
With information from Iuri Corsini and Pauline Almeida
Reference: CNN Brasil
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