The Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services (MGISP) formalized on the 2nd, through publication in the Official Journal of the Union (DOU), the authorization for the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai) to carry out a public tender, within the deadline of six months. 502 vacancies should be offered and, although the amount seems significant, it is considered insufficient to compose the staff. Those who make this assessment are the civil servants of the autarchy, who have above-normal duties, on a day-to-day basis, due to the working conditions they face. The promise, in previous years, was that staff embezzlement would no longer be a problem. Law No. 11,907/2009 provided for the creation of 3,100 positions for Funai. However, what happened were two contests, one in 2010 and another in 2016, which opened 967 vacancies. According to a report by the Union of Workers in the Federal Public Service in the Federal District (Sindisep-DF), which Agência Brasil had access to and which was presented to the transition team of the federal government, the autarchy currently has around 1 ,3 thousand servers. Retirements In all, 957 civil servants (73.6%) of the staff are 41 years of age or older, a fact that would demonstrate by itself that the autarchy should plan the entry of new civil servants. In addition, 315 (24.2%) civil servants are about to retire, while 292 of them (22.4%) would already be entitled to apply for retirement, but chose to remain active, in exchange for the permanent allowance. One of Funai’s essential functions that justifies its existence is that of demarcating and homologating indigenous lands. There are 480 claims for demarcation that have not yet been, according to the report, “even instructed to start the formal recognition process”, which depends on the formation of a technical group to advance the studies. “In addition to 480 claims, Funai has 134 ongoing identification and delimitation procedures, 16 procedures with already delimited indigenous lands that require administrative contradictory analysis, 33 judicial decisions (focusing on the universe of claims) for the composition of Technical Groups ( GTs) of identification and delimitation, 58 judicial decisions (focusing on the universe of procedures in progress) determining the conclusion of the identification and delimitation studies and 12 procedures in progress with a decision determining the conclusion demand recomposition of the GT. In judicial decisions there are, practically in its entirety, the incidence of fines causing damage to the treasury”, continue the servers in the document. This volume of work is under the responsibility of 12 civil servants, plus four coordinators, in the General Coordination of Identification and Delimitation (CGID), together with five other technicians who monitor the development of processes that are in the study stage, including those that require the formation of GTs. About what the CGID lives, specifically, the leader of Sindsep-DF Mônica Machado Carneiro is direct: “There are indigenous people who have been waiting there for 20 years for the constitution of a WG.” There are other areas of Funai with even less chance of overcoming the demands that arise. At the beginning of April this year, the Simplified Licensing Service (Selis) had 1,826 processes in the queue for analysis and no server working, with the exception of a head of the sector. The Coordination of the Indigenous Component of Transport and Mining (Cotram), in turn, had 1,256 processes waiting for two technicians. The Coordination of the Indigenous Component of Oil, Energy and Gas (Coep), which is also part of the list of areas that deal with undertakings that impact indigenous lands, the ratio, last month, was 313 processes per technician, and there are a staff of three employees crowded there. What results from this is that many processes are not even assigned to anyone, remaining at stage zero. In comparison, the union remembers the distribution that is adopted as a parameter at the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), where the average is six processes per technician, when the subject is environmental licensing. At Funai, the standard should be 30 per technician. The servants’ report, however, highlights the lack of human resources and, going further in the analyses, reveals the lack of measures that can reduce the turnover of servants and a scenario of demotivation and mental illness. Evasion of civil servants Another body that interpreted the situation at Funai in this way was the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU), as mentioned by the civil servants in the report. The TCU pointed out, after completing the audit, points such as the evasion of civil servants, the lack of incentive for them to qualify in the indigenous area and remain in places with adversities, which includes risking their lives, depending on the tension surrounding the territory, the lack of staff replacement and low pay. The Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services also understood the same way, diagnosing what it called an “epidemic of frustration” among Funai employees. In general, the classification also goes through “chronic weakening” of the organ, in the assessment of the TCU. “We really expect a change in the official discourse of the State in relation to indigenous peoples. We think it’s super important to have a specific ministry within the Federal Executive Branch, to have the entire federal government emphasizing the indigenous issue, but this has to be accompanied by of practical issues. There’s no way we can say that we’re going to resume the policy of demarcating indigenous lands if, in the responsible coordination, we have 12 people to take care of this universe”, says Mônica, who holds the position of specialized indigenist at Funai since 2010. “They are overloaded people and the work is very complex. It is a job of great responsibility, not only for guaranteeing the rights enshrined in the Federal Constitution to the indigenous peoples, in the land structure in which the indigenous lands are inserted, but also because it nullifies private titles that affect the delimited areas. In other words, it generates a very high potential for conflicts. This is very serious”, she adds. The association Indigenistas Associados (INA), of Funai employees, has also pressured the government to commit to valuing the category. In June 2022, the entity launched a proposal letter to election candidates, especially presidential candidates, focusing on the indigenous cause. The association considers the training of employees and the formulation of a career plan as paths for the institutional strengthening of the foundation. Indigenous people in voluntary isolation One of Funai’s main concerns, according to Mônica, is indigenous people in voluntary isolation. Today, the context is one of desolation and vulnerability, since each of the 79 Funai employees working in this area are responsible for looking after a perimeter of 978,381.92 hectares. One hectare is equivalent to the area of an official soccer field, approximately. At the height of the covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Supreme Court released the emergency hiring of indigenous workers to remain in territories where peoples in voluntary isolation live to protect them. The admission of indigenous people as civil servants is one of the practices that Funai has been incorporating for some time and that could help solve the bottlenecks it faces. As quoted by Mônica, however, this consists of something more specific and a form of temporary contract. “What we defend today is that mechanisms be created in the legislation to absorb indigenous workers as part of the permanent staff and not as temporary, outsourced workers, which leaves their work condition, in relation to non-indigenous workers, in a situation of inferiority, without stability, without rights”, he says. Agência Brasil asked Funai for a position, but received no response.
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