The 2006 Fiscal Transparency report by Oxford Analytica on Brazil states that the country has achieved the status of "Compliance in Progress" regarding its fulfillment of the principles of the Code of Good Practices as they pertain to fiscal transparency practices. Key to this positive assessment is the passage in 2000 of Brazil's Fiscal Responsibility Law, which both OA and the International Monetary Fund credit with significantly enhancing transparency. OA also finds that Brazil's tri-partite budget documentation requirements - requiring the presentation of multi-year plans, budget directives laws, and the annual budget law - not only enhance fiscal management but also contribute to improved fiscal transparency. The OA report asserts that Brazil has expressed a commitment to broad public disclosure of fiscal information, and at the national level is appropriately resourced to fulfill its mandate, both technologically and in terms of human resources. The situation is less fully developed at the sub-national level, however, and efforts are ongoing to address this shortcoming. According to the 2006 Open Budget Index, Brazil scores 73% for openness in its budget process, earning it a descriptive evaluation of "substantial" budget openness.

General Overview

Reporting in late 2006 on Brazil's fiscal transparency with regard to the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Code of Good Practices, Oxford Analytica (OA) gave the country an overall rating of "Compliance in Progress" (p. 26), noting that, even in the face of corruption scandals and election-year politicking in the mid-2000s, transparency practices continue to improve. Brazil's federal system allocates significant tax and fiscal policy authority to the state and municipal governments. Fiscal management is governed by the Constitution of 1988 and the Fiscal Responsibility Law (FRL). The federal government is constitutionally required to produce three specific types of budget documents: multi-year plans, budget directives laws, and annual budget laws. The multi-year plans are intended for use in strategic planning and to reduce ambiguity within the budget process. Budget documents classify items on both the program and economic levels, and actual appropriations tend to be lower than the amount specified on the program's budget. Data compilation for the central, state, and municipal government revenues is done on a cash-basis. An accrual basis is employed to compile spending data. A new practice was introduced in 2006, whereby Brazil's budget included comparable aggregate revenue and spending data drawn from prior years, offering greater context for the current year's proposals. The Brazilian Congress has improved its technical abilities to evaluate fiscal information, and there have been enhancements in the methods and capabilities of the National Audit Court (TCU). OA notes that there are some concerns raised by the TCU's recent action to broaden its legal operational framework. OA adds that, in 2006, new legislation was approved that sought to clarify the treatment of public-private partnerships within the fiscal reporting and accounting system. As to public availability of data, there is greater accessibility on the sub-national level, but the technical infrastructure required to optimize municipal-level data dissemination needs to be improved. Data on state-owned enterprises are available to the public.

Writing for the International Budget Project's 2006 Open Budget Initiative, analyst Fernanda Carvalho assigned an Open Budget Index (OBI) score of 73% to Brazil, signifying "substantial" openness in the Brazilian budget process. The OBI is based on the production and content of seven key budget documents: the Pre-Budget Statement, Executive's Budget Proposal, Citizen's Budget, In-Year Reports, Mid-Year Review, Year-End Report, and Auditor's Report. Brazil produces five of these documents and makes them all available to the public. It does not produce a Citizen's Budget or a Mid-Year Review. The Executive's Budget Proposal is considered to be highly informative, containing 79% of the information deemed necessary to permit the public to understand the government's fiscal activities in detail. In-year reports are issued regularly and offer good detail. The year-end report offers less detail however, and could be strengthened. While Brazil holds public budget hearings, it could expand the number of hearings in which citizens may take part.

The IMF published its last fiscal module of the Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) for Brazil in 2001. Even then, Brazil's fiscal transparency was found to be high and comment was made that improvements were ongoing, singling out the 2001 passage of the FRL for particular praise. Like OA, the IMF found the use of multi-year plans beneficial to Brazil's fiscal management and transparency. The IMF's Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) website discloses that Brazil became a subscriber to the standard in March of 2001, at which time it posted its first metadata on the SDDS bulletin board and met SDDS specifications. It produces advance release calendars and summary methodologies for all relevant fiscal datasets. It has availed itself of the timeliness flexibility option for its general government or public sector operations data.

In the published concluding statement to the 2008 Article IV consultations between Brazil and the IMF, the Executive Board made the following observations regarding fiscal policy. Executive Board directors urged the authorities to "consider carefully the design and purpose of the Brazilian Sovereign Fund (FSB)" regarding both its contribution to domestic demand pressures and the transparency of the operations of the fund, since these "would be critical to maintaining confidence in macroeconomic policy, including in the area of foreign exchange operations that need to be closely coordinated with the Central Bank", the IMF report notes. The IMF's Executive Board also welcomed the Brazilian government's tax reform plan, while some of the Directors emphasized the importance of measures aimed at reforming the social security system to "enhance the long-term fiscal position;... and raising the quality and efficiency of fiscal policy". Lastly, Executive Board Directors recommended that Brazil develop a "comprehensive medium-term budgetary framework to guide fiscal policy, limit its current pro-cyclical bias, and protect priority spending during economic downturns", the IMF report added.

The Principles

Clarity of roles and responsibilities.

CP

According to the 2006 OA report, Brazil's has achieved a score of "Compliance in Progress" (p. 27) with regard to the principle "Clarity of Roles, Responsibilities, and Objectives." The country's legal and administrative framework is founded upon the Constitution of 1988 and the FRL of 2000. OA states that the FRL "regulates inter-governmental fiscal relations, contains guidelines on the management of state revenues, imposes limitations on sub-national government spending, and prohibits certain fiscal activities" (pp. 29-30). According to OA, the FRL enhances fiscal management and transparency but retains some deficiencies. For instance, accountability is not clearly defined, the structure of sanctions is not coherently organized or deployed, and congressional oversight is perceived to be subject to political interference. The Constitution sets forth provisions for the collection and redistribution of tax revenues at the various levels of government. The National Tax Code requires that all taxes, contributions, duties, and fees be based on explicit legislation. Reform legislation was introduced in 2003 that was aimed at rationalizing Brazil's "notoriously complex" (p. 30) system of taxation and reducing competition among states for tax dollars. Action on the reform proposals, however, was sidelined by state-level resistance to provisions in the bill. A non-binding "Brazilian Charter" was agreed to by all states in early 2004. The Charter "aimed at simplifying the tax systems among the country's states and providing a more homogeneous legal framework" (p. 30). Further streamlining efforts are under consideration. This is particularly the case with regard to the taxation of small businesses, which have been known to take refuge from tax complexities by retreating to the informal sector.

OA reports that "the structure and responsibilities of the government are well set out, both in legislation and in the production of fiscal data" (p. 27). Three broad categories of government data are established: central, state, and municipal. The latter category of data is handled by means of sampling, using a sample size of 250 municipalities to represent the 5,560 total municipal governments in the country. The Brazilian Constitution allocates specific responsibilities to each level of government, and mandates independent, elected executive, legislative, and judicial branch authorities for each region of the country. Sub-national government entities formulate, execute, and oversee their own budgets and administer their own tax systems with limited federal involvement. The federal government is constitutionally required to prepare drafts of three budget documents: multi-year plans, budget directives laws, and annual budget laws. These must be presented to the congress for review and, if necessary, amendment. The Constitution sets forth provisions regarding budget coordination, but OA reports a certain vagueness in the terms according to which public-spending authority has devolved over time. An attempt to address this problem was incorporated into the multi-year plan for 2004-2007, but OA finds this effort to have been ineffective. Individual states have instituted programs by which to improve their own fiscal management and budget activities, and some states have shown progress in this regard, particularly Santa Catarina, Ceara, Minas Gerais, and Rio Grande do Sul. In addition to stipulating relationships across levels of government, the Constitution sets forth the relationships that may obtain between the government and agencies within the public sector. Within the Ministry of Finance (MdF), the Committee for the Management of Federal Public Financial Institutions has authority over state-owned financial institutions, whereas the Department of Coordination and Management of State-Owned Enterprises - a division of the Ministry of Planning, Budget, and Management (MdP) - supervises the SOEs outside the financial services sector. Both the MdF and MdP make their information available to the public and update it regularly.

Other legislation touching upon Brazil's fiscal management and transparency issues include Law 4.595, enacted in 1964 and subsequently amended, which deals with the relationship between the government and the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB). The BCB is not independent of the government, but OA asserts that it "enjoys ample operational autonomy" (p. 28). The principle of monetary and fiscal policy separation is a recognized element of overall policy. The constitution of boards of directors of regulatory agencies is governed by the Regulatory Agencies Consolidation Bill of 2004, which also sets out the terms of office for board directors. The funding of public investment projects is handled in part through the budget and in part through a 2005 initiative called the Investment Pilot Scheme (IPS), developed in consultation with the IMF, World Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank. By the terms of this program, continued funding is tied to performance. This arrangement is expected to both improve the chances of project completion and to enhance efficiency, but the scheme suffers from insufficient resourcing. The IPS is under the control of the National Audit Court. The government also has some significant involvement in certain private-sector industries, including energy, water and sanitation, transportation, and the financial sector. According to OA, "government equity ownership is reported in the annual reports of these companies" (p. 28). The Brazilian National Treasury also publishes a full account of the government's equity holdings on the Treasury website. Public-private partnerships are governed by Law No. 11.079 of 2004, which itself follows the principles embodied in the FRL. The law includes provisions governing the bid-and-contract process to be followed by federal, state, and municipal entities entering into such partnerships and, according to OA, "promotes the principles of efficiency, transparency, and fiscal responsibility" (p. 29). Provisions are included in the law to accommodate the budgetary implications arising from the long-term nature of most such partnerships. OA points out that the inclusion of both long- and short-term objectives in a single year's budget requires that particular care be taken to standardize both accounting and reporting procedures. This was specifically addressed by supplementary regulation of public-private partnerships in 2006. Partnerships are monitored by a managing council whose members are drawn from the MdF, MdP, and the Casa Civil, which is a part of the executive branch. The required impact analysis for public-private partnership approval has been criticized for making the process too time-consuming, but proponents of the process see this as a way to maintain fiscal sustainability. Improved technical capabilities are being explored that may, in part, address this issue.

Brazil's federal tax system falls under the authority of the Federal Revenue Administration (FRS). The National Social Security Institute (INSS) which administers the social security system. The two agencies were briefly merged into a single entity - the Federal Revenue and Customs Administration - in an effort to improve efficiency and oversight, but this was reversed by Congress. A new initiative to restore the merged agency was pursued in 2006. OA states that such a merger "will provide better management, reduce operational costs, simplify procedures for the users, and improve tax collection" (p. 31). Individual tax administrations have authority at the federal district, state, and municipal levels of government. OA reports that the MdF is directly responsible for the conduct, regulation, and audit of the federal tax system. The FRS maintains a website that offers public access to the text of tax laws and regulations, tax schedules, and other information on the agency's mission, operations, and responsibilities. The FRS data is updated monthly, whereas tax information at the municipal and state levels is available annually.

Finally, OA reports that the issue of public service ethics is covered by the 1990 Statute for Civil Servants, covering all public employees, and the 1994 Code of Professional Ethics for Federal Public Servants. The text of the Code is available to the public. These two documents stipulate the rights and responsibilities of public employees, along with disciplinary actions that may be taken. The Fiscal Crimes Law of 2000 stipulates the penalties to be applied against misbehavior by public officials. There is a specific code covering the conduct of public officials directly involved in the management of public debt. This is the Code of Conduct for Senior Federal Government Officials. It requires that all such officials declare their assets upon entering public service, and it pays particular attention to issues arising from conflicts of interest. This Code is administered by the Public Ethics Commission, but OA reports that the commission is insufficiently empowered. The Code of Conduct for the National Treasury applies to staff within that agency and also regulates the conduct of meetings and the disclosure of information. Recent corruption scandals involving members of the government are seen by OA as a sign of Brazil's commitment to anti-corruption practices. Congressional committees actively pursue corruption investigations, including those involving members of Congress, and indictments have been handed down.

Open budget processes

CP

The 2006 OA report states that Brazil has achieved a score of "Compliance in Progress" (p. 38) for the principle "Open Budget Preparation, Execution, and Reporting." The MdF discloses information on its fiscal policy objectives to the public. The use of output-oriented, multi-year plans in the budget process has helped to integrate Brazil's short- and long-term budgetary goals and is facilitating a shift to performance-based management. Implementation of the multi-year planning process has had mixed success, however. Efforts been made to enhance the strategic utility of the multi-year plans, but OA finds that more work remains to be done. The multi-year plans are but one of a three-part series of budget documents required for submission to Congress each year. Budget directive laws must also be prepared, providing "guidelines and direction for the final yearly budget," and reflecting the goals and spending requirements of the multi-year plans. The third required document of the budget process is the Annual Budget Law, which details the entire year's budget. OA finds that, in practice, there are some recurrent problems with the Annual Budget Law, whose objectives sometimes diverge from those provided in the multi-year plans and the budget directive laws. Additionally, the Annual Budget Law's appropriations often diverge from those set forth elsewhere in the budget documents and reallocations are common. OA reports that there is an initiative to overhaul the Annual Budget Law to address inefficiencies and ambiguities, and suggests that this should lead to greater coherence and improved management. To increase the rate of public involvement in the budget process, the government has prioritized the creation of an internet-based consultative system that will draw participants from the government, the civil service, and the academic and media communities.

The MdF and MdP websites offers public access to the broad outlines of its macroeconomic framework, along with disclosure of any new budget programs. This information is also included in the budget documents presented to Congress each year, and has recently been included on a dedicated website maintained by the Federal Budget Secretariat. During the course of the year, bi-monthly revisions are made to the framework and reported to Congress, and three-times yearly the Congress receives performance reports, with explanatory information, as well. Fiscal risk assessments are required by provisions of the FRL, including coverage of contingent liabilities and a statement of remedial measures that must be taken, if warranted. This information is included in the budget directive laws that form part of the annual budget documentation. Fiscal risk reporting is governed by the Fiscal Risks and Fiscal Management Report Guidelines, which must be followed across all government levels and by all departments. The budget directive laws must also include actuarial data on the Social Security System and the Worker Support Fund, as prescribed by both the FRL and the Social Assistance Organic Law. OA raises some concerns that the fiscal risk information offered in the budget directive laws and the Annual Budget Law is insufficiently integrated, but notes that steps to address this issue are being contemplated. While risk assessment is a part of the budget process, sustainability assessments are not provided. Nonetheless, OA reports that the BCB and the National Treasury do carry out sustainability studies and make them available to the public.

Budget execution and monitoring procedures are governed by sections of the FRL and are detailed on the MdF website. According to OA, the government also offers a "useful" bi-monthly review of its fiscal targets. According to OA, this review enhances transparency by providing public access to information on project performance. Explanations are offered in cases where targets are not met, or why objectives may have been modified, and includes information on changes that may have been made in initial estimates of income and spending. OA notes that Brazil does not provide in-year reporting on revenues and offers few details on government borrowing. Beginning in 2006, reports have been made available to Congress and the cabinet covering program execution. Online public access to information on government transfers to sub-national entities is anticipated for 2007. A Budget Execution Report is produced monthly, and a new publication called Monitoring in Numbers offers analysis and graphics relating to budget execution as well. OA reports that Brazil has undertaken a new "transparency initiative," by which federal agencies "have to submit information on budget execution, procurement contracts, and relevant internal legislation" (p. 41) in layman's language. Monitoring and reporting on budget execution has been recently enhanced by the full operationalization of Brazil's management and planning system, known as the SIGPlan (Sistema de Informacoes Gerenciais e de Planejamento). However, OA notes that not all observers have found the SIGPlan to be useful, and a new version is under discussion that will address issues raised by the system's critics.

The accounting system used by the Brazilian federal government is set forth in Law No. 4.320 of 1964 and Decree No. 3.589 of 2000. The National Treasury's mandate to manage federal accounting operations is contained in Law No. 10.180 of 2000. The accounting system is called the Integrated Financial Administration System, known by its Portuguese acronym, SIAFI. While SIAFI has been useful as a monitoring tool for the federal government, improvements are being developed to make it more useful for sub-national monitoring and render it better suited for monitoring improved multi-year plans, as well. A lack of funds has stalled this initiative, however. Procedures for the conduct of internal audits are set forth online for public viewing on the website of the Federal Internal Supervision Secretariat. This data is not yet fully consistent, although the Treasury has been working to homogenize the accounting system across government levels. Reporting on procurement and employment is governed by Law No. 8.666 of 1993. In 2006 a new decree, Decree No. 5.504, further strengthened the procurement process, but OA suggests that more work needs to be done in this area. Human resource management information is provided online by the MdF, and related information was included in the multi-year plan for 2004-2007.

Beyond the actual budget process, the Constitution and the FRL require Brazil's authorities to report to both the public and the Congress on fiscal matters such as budgetary and extra-budgetary results. This reporting must occur in the context of public congressional hearings held every May, September, and February. Quarterly reports must also be produced. A similar hearings process is carried out at the sub-national level. Testimony at these hearings is made available to the public on the MdF and MdP websites. An annual Message to Congress contains the details of the final budget accounts. The Constitution requires the establishment of a permanent, bicameral Congressional Budget Commission that is charged with the assessment and supervision of the budget, and OA finds Congress's capabilities to carry out this responsibility to have improved over recent years. Training in the work of fiscal oversight is provided by a department within Congress. Within the Budget Commission, the Budget Execution Committee has been reaching out for greater public involvement in the budget dialog. Scandals in recent years have led to an initiative by the Congressional Chamber of Deputies to pass a constitutional amendment banning secret voting. OA notes that such an action "could cause a major transformation in the relationship between legislators and their electorate, enhancing transparency overall" (p. 42).

Public availability of information.

CP

According to the 2006 OA report, Brazil has achieved a score of "Compliance in Progress" (p. 33) regarding public availability of information. A major contributor to this achievement has been the passage of the FRL in 2000, which greatly extended the fiscal reporting requirements of all government entities, at all levels. A thrice-yearly Fiscal Management Report has been published since 2001 that provides a wide range of consolidated data covering debt and credit, social security, and human resource allocations. The Consolidated Fiscal Accounts Report is produced annually in the first half of the year, covering the fiscal year just completed. OA finds the data included in these reports to be of greater reliability than in the recent past, but greater comprehensiveness of these reports could still be achieved, particularly in the area of unrecorded liabilities. Brazil's recent legislation governing public-private partnerships should help to reduce the incidence of further such unrecorded liabilities. The budget directives laws contain a Fiscal Risks Annex that documents the contingent liabilities of all levels of government. By virtue of FRL provisions, the government must offer an assessment as to whether or not contingent liabilities will become actual ones. Contingent liabilities arising from the pension system are disclosed in the budget. Brazil's "budgets include the operations of all nonfinancial public institutions," according to OA (p. 34). The incidence of quasi-fiscal operations by SOEs are reported and these are significantly on the decline. Federal subsidies implicated in quasi-fiscal activities are detailed as explicit transfers in the annual budget. OA finds that reporting on national assets still needs improvement in the area of valuation.

Sub-national reporting is complicated by the fact that Brazil is highly decentralized, with the states and as many as 5,560 individual municipal governments holding some degree of fiscal autonomy. To address the issue of fiscal discipline in such a context, and in response to burgeoning state-bonded debt, the FRL established nationwide transparency requirements, buttressed by individual agreements on debt restructuring between the states and the central government. This action has resulted in an "increase in availability of fiscal information analysis at the sub-national level - not only from government agencies, but also from independent research institutions" (p. 34). OA reports that sub-national fiscal data have become increasingly available to the public, primarily through the greater use of online formats. Nonetheless, OA notes that the technical capacity particularly of municipalities has lagged behind that found on the state and federal levels. The MdF is actively working to deal with this and related issues, but the large and growing number of individual municipal-level fiscal units makes progress in this area difficult. The National Treasury publishes the sub-national consolidated public sector accounts in its Consolidated Fiscal Accounts Report. It employs an electronic accounting system for this data per the specifications contained in the FRL. According to OA, the Treasury also verifies state-level public finances annually, as required by Law No. 9.496 of 1997. Revision data, including restatements of targets and programs, are published on the Treasury website, as are new or revised fiscal management guidelines. The FRL called for the creation of uniform sub-national budget reporting guidelines, but this had not yet been done at the time of the OA report's publication.

Brazil's commitment to timely publication of fiscal information is reflected in its subscription to the IMF's SDDS. This data is prepared by and released through the National Treasury website, for the most part, but the BCB also issues aggregate central government data in its Central Bank Bulletin. The requirement to broadly disseminate key fiscal information to the public is specifically embodied in the FRL, and the OA report lists a variety of sources via which such data is disseminated, including "plans, budgets, and Budgetary Directives Laws; rendering

of accounts and respective prior statements of opinion; Summary Budget Execution Reports and Fiscal Management Reports; and the simplified versions of these documents" (p. 35). Much of this information is available in both English and Portuguese, but some Treasury data and the data on the MdP and MdF websites are in Portuguese only. The Treasury publishes time-series fiscal data covering the central government fiscal balance, the National Treasury's financial execution data, and data on economic subsidies and grants, as well as issuing a publication covering the activities of the Treasury and Central Bank. There are plans to expand coverage of the analytical framework by both the Treasury and the MdP. Other reports include the annual Union Balance and the Monthly Treasury Report, the latter being highly regarded as a timely, reliable, and worthwhile analytical source. The MdF website also provides public access to fiscal data related to Brazil's SOEs.

The FRL requires the Ministry of Finance to keep detailed centralized, current, computerized accounts of internal and external public debt and guarantees the public the right to access to this information. According to OA, 2005 saw the transition of public debt management responsibility from the BCB to the National Treasury, which is believed to have improved data disclosure practices. This and other reforms have in public debt administration have led the Treasury to undertake operations, infrastructural, and human resources upgrades. It has also led to the publication of a new report, External Debt Management Strategy, which offers "medium and short-term information and analysis on debt management" (p. 36). The Treasury also publishes its Annual Borrowing Plan at the start of each fiscal year. The report is available in both Portuguese and English and includes both descriptive and analytical information. The MdF offers an annual Public Debt Report, which permits comparative analysis with the data contained in the Borrowing Plan and is felt to be a useful additional analytical tool by market participants and outside experts. The content of the Public Debt Report has improved in scope over time. Neither the Public Debt Report nor the Annual Borrowing Plan are legally mandated publications, but the government considers them appropriate vehicles by which to fulfill its transparency obligations. Government operations data is published monthly by the BCB, and weekly federal public debt management data is offered online by the Treasury. Public bond transaction data is also available online through Brazil's Online System of Federal Public Bonds Quotation. This data is produced in real time.

Fernanda Carvalho compiled Brazil's score on the 2006 Open Budget Index for the International Budget Project's Open Budget Initiative, awarding the country a rating of 73%, which signifies "substantial" openness. Brazil produces and makes public five of the seven key budget documents tracked by the OBI, but does not produce either a mid-year review or a citizen's budget. The executive's budget proposal is comprehensive, earning a score of 79% for its content and coverage. In-year reports are also admirably detailed, but the year-end report is found to be less than comprehensive. Carvalho suggests that Brazil's public budget hearings process could also be improved by expanding the number of opportunities for direct public participation. The IMF's SDDS website discloses that Brazil became a subscriber to the standard in March of 2001, at which time it posted its first metadata on the SDDS bulletin board and met SDDS specifications regarding. It produces advance release calendars and summary methodologies for all relevant fiscal datasets. It has availed itself of the timeliness flexibility option for its general government or public sector operations data.

Independent assurances of integrity.

CP

According to the 2006 OA report, Brazil demonstrates "Compliance in Progress" (p. 43) with the principle of "Accountability and Assurance of Integrity." The report credits Brazil's positive performance to the enforcement of the FRL. Time lags in the release of data have been cut, and improvements to fiscal reporting are an ongoing affair. Users perceive that information is reliable at both the national and sub-national levels. Greater coverage of municipal data has been achieved as a result of improved reporting practices. The fiscal data of the National Treasury and the BCB are subject to cross-checking by the Treasury. External audits at the federal level are carried out by the National Audit Court, which is a publicly respected agency. The Court consists of nine members, three of whom are presidential appointees, six appointed by Congress. The Court is empowered by constitutional provisions "to judge and to impose penalties" (p. 43) in the area of budget regularities, abuses, error, waste, and mismanagement. The Court reports to Congress and, if prosecution is warranted, to the Attorney General's Office. Its reports are available to the public online and in the Official Gazette. OA finds that the Court possesses the appropriate technological and methodological capabilities to carry out its responsibilities, but notes that the audit courts at the state and municipal level are less well equipped. A program is in place to address these deficiencies. Random investigations of the use of federal funds or assets by public officials are carried out each year by the General Corrector's Office. The BCB actively seeks out independent analyses of fiscal forecasts and publishes them on its website. The government also reaches out to the private sector for consultation on fiscal issues. Brazilian statistics in general fall under the authority of the Brazilian Institute of National Statistics and Geography, which reports to the MdP. The Institute is nonetheless operationally autonomous and is considered to be both reliable and impartial. It is mandated by law to make its data freely available to the public. The Institute's data is compiled in accordance with the methodology recommendations of the System of National Accounts. Advance-release calendars are published on the Institute's website. OA notes that the Institute "helps in the compilation and systematization of fiscal data at the sub-national level" (p. 44), publishing this data online as well. Information on municipal management is published in the Survey of Basic Municipal Information: Public Administration.