Councilors are surprised and privatization of Sabesp should

The vote on the privatization of the Basic Sanitation Company of the State of São Paulo (Sabesp) in the municipality of São Paulo should take place this Wednesday (17), as announced by the president of the City Council, Milton Leite (União Brasil), in a meeting of leaders’ school this Tuesday (16).

“We must take the vote on the Sabesp concession bill to the plenary tomorrow. We will carry out all roll calls. Whatever it is will be roll call. The base will have to be present. Debate and vote tomorrow. Congress today”, he stated during the meeting.

In other words, the project is still being voted on in all the committees it needs to go through, simultaneously. Approved by the committees, which is expected, it will go to the plenary vote tomorrow. To pass, the project must be approved in two sessions by a simple majority, that is, 28 favorable votes from 55 councilors. The government claims it has the majority for approval.

Councilor Silva Ferraro (PSOL) criticized the Mayor’s decision to put the project to a vote without prior studies on privatization and with violations of the legislative procedure. “The normal procedure would be to process the project in all committees. There was only one public hearing, yesterday,” the councilor told the Brazil in fact.

Now, the opposition’s strategy is to obstruct. This means preventing the plenary from reaching the necessary quorum to start voting, requesting a call, among other mechanisms established by the internal regulations. However, the absence of a replacement project for the one in question makes this process even difficult.

“All the large companies interested in buying Sabesp shares are moving. What exists is a rush by companies interested in buying Sabesp shares, and governor Tarcísio wants to sell as quickly as possible. Automatically, Ricardo Nunes’ government is pressured”, said the councilor about the reasons that led to the announcement of the vote.

The rush for approval also occurs in a scenario of low approval of the project among the population. A Quaest survey released this Monday (15) showed that 61% of São Paulo residents are against privatization. Those who are in favor make up 29% of those interviewed.

Across the entire state, 52% of São Paulo voters are against privatization, while 36% are in favor. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points. In total, 1,656 people aged 16 or over were interviewed between April 4th and 7th.

Privatization at Alesp was approved in December

The privatization of Sabesp was approved by the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo (Alesp) in December last year. In total, there were 62 votes in favor and 1 against, with no opposition.

Also at Alesp, the project was processed quickly, especially after the mobilization organized by workers against the sale of the company. There were two strikes with other categories and a popular plebiscite which, by a large majority, showed that the population is against handing over the company to the private sector.

The proposal was formally presented to Alesp on October 17 last year. In the following weeks, deputies were awarded more than R$73 million in extra parliamentary amendments.

After approval at Alesp, the privatization needs to be discussed in 375 municipalities served by Sabesp, including the capital São Paulo, before being implemented. This is because cities that already have contracts with the company to manage their sanitation system need to evaluate whether they want to maintain these agreements.

The pressure to maintain the contract with the capital of São Paulo is enormous, since the municipality is responsible for 44.5% of the company’s revenue and a refusal would jeopardize privatization.

Editing: Nicolau Soares