The Chamber of Deputies approved this Thursday (15th), in two shifts, the Proposed Amendment to the Constitution that governs public service permits. Called the Lottery PEC, the measure grants an additional period of validity to current contracts of all lottery agents with Caixa Econômica Federal. The proposal goes to the Senate for analysis.
The text of the proposal provides that lottery agents who operate under the permission regime or who were only accredited may benefit. In the first case, there are those who won bids organized by Caixa. During the vote, parliamentarians removed from the text the 50-year period for the extension of these permissions to lottery shops and the device that established the forecast that products offered by Caixa Econômica Federal would be sold exclusively.
According to the text, the second group includes 6,310 lottery shops with contracts prior to the 1988 Constitution, which did not go through a bidding process. They are individuals or legal entities that have only received accreditation to act as resellers of lottery tickets, when such permission was available.
“We deem it essential to establish, with the utmost urgency, greater long-term stability for expanding services to the needy population, to those who do not have access to the banking network, to the direct and indirect beneficiaries of the collection, as one more means of achieving the objectives of a prosperous, orderly, more egalitarian and fair country”, said the rapporteur, Deputy Darci de Matos (PSD-SC). According to the congressman, the measure encompasses 13,400 lotteries.
The PEC was designed to provide legal certainty to lottery operators, who have since faced a discussion about permission in the Federal Supreme Court (STF). In 2015, contracts without prior bidding were considered valid by law, which also extended the permission for another 20 years. The legislation, however, has been questioned by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR).
