The mayors of cities in the metropolitan region of Campinas expressed support for expanding the mobilization for the overturn of Bill (PL) 529/2020, in a meeting held this Wednesday (26) with the rector of Unicamp, Marcelo Knobel. At the meeting, the rector particularly highlighted his concern about article 14 of the project, which would bring great losses to the budget of São Paulo universities, putting their functioning at risk. The mayors present at the meeting demonstrated agreement and intend to send a document to the Legislative Assembly of the state of São Paulo (Alesp) reporting the contradiction to the content of the PL.
In addition to the document, the mayors also agreed to seek dialogue with deputies from Alesp, where the PL is being processed, to raise awareness. The rector of Unicamp highlighted the importance of expanding this movement, especially with regard to article 14, which directly confronts universities in São Paulo and the Research Support Foundation of the state of São Paulo (Fapesp). “In particular for the three public universities and Fapesp, we are very concerned about article 14, which simply proposes a confiscation of all the resources we have from the end of 2019 to 2020. The government would simply take the money and use it for other purposes”, pointed.
He also explained that Unicamp has been in deficit since 2014 and the reserves are what have enabled the University to survive these years without taking on more debt. “With the PL, we would have the confiscation of all resources, which will make it impossible for us to carry out our activities. We won't be able to plan anything, we will have a very dramatic situation in all universities. In particular at Unicamp, this would directly affect healthcare services,” he said.
As an example of affected activities, the dean pointed out that Unicamp is currently responsible for around 25% of the state's Covid-19 tests, with more than 1.300 tests carried out daily. “This PL puts services like this at risk. It is a very critical and worrying situation and I would like to draw attention to this situation and ask for support for the necessary political mobilization so that especially this article 14 can be modified or even suppressed from the law”.
If the PL is approved as it is, the immediate loss for Unicamp would be around R$50 million. With the forecast of a loss of revenue of R$275 million due to the crisis related to the pandemic, the consequences would be disastrous for the functioning of the University. Therefore, efforts to ensure that the project is not approved becomes urgent.
