The (unexerted) competencies of municipal legislative financial committees in Brazil

Abstract This article analyses the legislative committee carrying out financial and budgetary oversight at municipalities in Brazil. These committees, similar to the internationally named Public Account Committees, support parliamentarians to analyze, evaluate, and scrutinize budgetary bills, amendments and governor’s accounts covering the entire budgetary cycle. Based on a small-N analysis inductive approach, the study compares budgetary legislative committees from three local parliaments for the term 2013-2016. Such budgetary committees just operate ceremonially and passively, offering superficial recommendations. The evidence indicates that the legal mandate to operate and material and human resources are not sufficient to guarantee the commissions’ efficiency. The collateral undesirable effects from coalitional government create incentives to maintain ceremonial commissions. The fragile legislative committee’s performance on budgetary issues is a bottleneck to any aspiration to achieve fiscal sustainability in Brazil.