With 55,000 students, more than 1,400 laboratories, nine hospitals, 45 libraries and 15 listed buildings, one of the largest universities in Brazil is about to close its doors. The statement was made by the dean of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Denise Pires de Carvalho. “We were able to pay the contracts until the month of August, not in September. There is a possibility of ‘shut down,’” she says.
Cradle of distinguished professionals, such as Oscar Niemeyer, the university based on Ilha do Fundão has had a significant budget reduction since 2012, when –in the rectory’s accounts– the inflation-adjusted budget was the equivalent of R$725 million. Today it is R$ 329 million. To pay the bills until the end of the year, they calculate that it would be necessary to reach R$ 390 million. In the last two years alone, UFRJ would have lost 30% of its investment power.
“That would never happen at Oxford. At a time of a pandemic, universities earn more”, says Denise. Researchers are in the final phase of production of UFRJ-vac, one of the vaccines being researched to stop the coronavirus.
Effectively, the money would run out in August. In September, water and electricity bills and cleaning and security contracts would no longer be paid. The university’s management says that, when it does not have minimum operating conditions, it will close its doors and demand that the federal government unblock and recompose amounts cut from the budget.
“We now have 45 days to reverse the lockdown. We don’t want to stop at all. If we have a stop, I can guarantee that it will be noisy, it will not be quiet”, said the Dean of Planning, Development and Finance, Eduardo Raupp de Vargas.
Among the nine hospitals managed by UFRJ are medium and high complexity units, such as Hospital Clementino Fraga Filho and Maternity School. They would also be impacted, as BRL 80 million of the budget is earmarked for them. “What happens when the light is cut off? Because patients who need respirators cannot remain without light,” said the dean. In the case of these places, the stop would be programmed and alerted to patients, so that there are no risks to them.
THE CNN contacted the Ministry of Education and is awaiting a response on the financial crisis at UFRJ.
Source: CNN Brasil
