Orçamento participativo em Alagoinhas-Ba (2001-2005): um instrumento pedagógico de cidadania?

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyze the process of implementation of the Participative Budget in Alagoinhas- BA (2001-2005). The historic molding of the practice of citizenship in Brazil imposed an anti-participation of the popular classes and of the different social subjects including the political class and the civil society that has been facing a new form of administration that have adopted social participation and direct democracy as the basic primacy; as well as how to understand up to which point the Participative Budget has contributed to social participation, local authority and a health system with a greater resolubility. The study is of qualitative nature in a historical-social perspective. The working up process of the Participative Budget includes various social subjects (govemment, social movements and legislative power) with educational matrixes of political, social, cultural and ideological meaning that made possible the dialogue between the subjects and the object of the study. The semi-structured interview was used so to permit a greater freedom for the interviewer as well as the person interviewed in order to contribute to the development of the proposed theme through its form of leaming the reality it lives in. The participative observation of the elaboration, execution and evaluation of the Participative Budget and the consulting of documents that portray its implementation had a complementary character. The treatment of the empiric material had as basis the contents analysis, taking into account the multiple dimensions of the investigative process, in the description, explanation and comprehension of the study in focus. The study reveals that the Participative Budget is build as a pedagogical instrument of citizenship of social control and local power upon the use of public resources. The Participative Budget conforms itself as a democratic and participative project with popular support, being implemented as of 2001 with advances and set backs in its process of formation with regard to social participation. There existed convergence among the people interviewed in the acknowledgment of the Participative Budget as a tool of social control of the municipal executive and legislative actions by the civil society and the formation of different subjects to perform citizenship. One of the consensual questions, for the advocates as well as the opponents of the Participative Budget, was the definition and election of an excessive number of priorities in 2001 and 2002. Their putting into practice would result in an expenditure of funds fairly above the investment capacity of the municipality. Hence it was not possible to define new priorities as long as the ones that had been defined previously were carried out, causing political wear to the Participative Budget members. Nevertheless the govemment nucleus showed understanding as to the claims of the people of Alagoinhas making possible a democratic discussion of the problems that are present in the local govemment. The survey identified that from 2001 on, the local govemment got the full administration of the health care system receiving direct funds from the Ministry of Health without the state intermediacy. This process represented not only a greater entrance of resources from the national fund into the municipal health fund, but also an increase in the counterpart of the local govemment in health investments. It was concluded that the Participative Budget is a process of participative construction and of citizenship permeated by conf1icts and contradictions in the service of the social necessities of a local reality.