Asked about the total amount made available to congressmen for this specific expense, the Senate did not respond
Ranier Bragon
Brasilia DF
The Senate still provides parliamentarians with funds to send their voters telegrams, a form of communication created in the 19th century and which arrived in Brazil more than 170 years ago.
Although technology has been supplanted by telephony and has fallen into disuse with the popularization of fax, email and, more recently, instant messaging via cell phones, in 2022 eight senators still used the budget, two of them in January of this year.
“We would send telegrams to our friends almost automatically. People called me thanking me, many put them in picture frames, in paintings. In fact, it’s something almost old, but it made a difference, because they didn’t have it anymore. From that aspect, it was an important thing”, says Acir Gurgacz (PDT-RO).
He ended his term in January and was the champion in sending telegrams last year, spending R$4,900 to generally send congratulations to voters on commemorative dates or information on the release of funds for their regions.
Among the current senators, Jayme Campos (União Brasil-MT) is the one who most resorted to the budget since January 2022, always in small monthly amounts, totaling R$ 279 in this period. The report sought his office, but did not receive a response.
The amounts paid to senators for expenses with telegrams were identified from consultation on the Senate transparency portal. Asked about the total amount made available to congressmen for this specific expense, the Senate did not respond.
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As Folha de S.Paulo showed, the Chamber and the Senate keep distributing funds to parliamentarians with justifications that are not compatible with what happens in the real world.
At the beginning of this year, almost all parliamentarians earned an extra salary (R$ 39.3 thousand) as a stipend for moving to Brasília or returning to their states, with the re-elected ones earning two (R$ 78.6 thousand) – one for the beginning of the current legislature, another for the end of the last one.
It turns out that, just like the re-elected, practically no parliamentarians actually need to move to the federal capital, since they receive another quota of more than enough value for weekly flights to and from their states.
Although it is in much smaller amounts than the aid for the phantom changes, the Senate telegram budget also draws attention because there is no apparent reason for its maintenance.
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The telegram emerged with the telegraph, which used electric current to send coded messages from one location to another, through cables connected to two or more devices.
It was up to the American Samuel Morse (1791-1872) to invent the most famous of them and, in May 1844, send the first long-distance message, from Washington to Baltimore (separated by about 60 kilometers).
The telegraph arrived in Brazil in 1852, being implemented by Dom Pedro 2nd.
Since then, he saw the birth of technologies around him that allowed for faster and easier communication. First, telephony and, more recently, fax, email, and instant messaging via the cell phone.
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Until the beginning of the popularization of computers and the internet, however, the telegram still remained a common means of sending brief and urgent communications, mainly official ones, as it was faster than letters.
He was charged by the number of letters and then by words, which made the texts short and the words often abbreviated. Hence the expression “telegraphic text” or “telegraphic message” to describe lean forms of communication.
The telegram service is offered today by Correios under the following description: “Urgent and confidential message, transmitted electronically [de um ponto do país a outro], printed and self-enveloped without human intervention. After proper packaging, the telegram will be delivered to the destination address”.
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Those interested can look for an agency or send the message by phone or via the internet, from R$ 9.76. In most cases, the state company says that the recipient will receive the printed telegram within four hours.
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In addition to funds for telegrams, letters and printed , the Chamber and Senate allocate quotas to parliamentarians for various expenses that, added to salaries, represent a cost of more than R$ 200,000 per month per congressman.
At the end of last year, the House and Senate promoted a cascade increase in salaries and budgets for parliamentarians.
The staggered salary increase was approved, from R$ 33.7 thousand to R$ 39.3 thousand now, rising to R$ 41.7 thousand in April and reaching the ceiling of functionalism (R$ 46.4 thousand) in 2025 The last increase in congressmen’s paychecks was made in 2014. Since then, inflation has reached 59%
In addition to salaries, there was an adjustment in all other amounts related to the term of congressmen, which raised, for example, the housing allowance ceiling for deputies to R$ 8.4 thousand.
Sought after, the Senate press office did not comment on the budget for sending telegrams.
Both the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), and the President of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), also did not comment on the allowance for the phantom changes, which add up to more than R$ 40 million.