Over the past decade, Brazilian lawmakers have steadily built up procedures to expand their powers over the purse. That has included increasing the overall volume of congressional grants; making a large share of them mandatory spending; limiting the Executive’s discretion over when to release those funds, and creating ways to erase transparency and traceability from the process. A perfect recipe for corruption, which has now trickled down to state and municipal levels.

But the Supreme Court has just ordered the three branches of government to run a nationwide awareness campaign — from December through March — to explain how congressional grants are executed. The idea: show the public where they can access information about these amendments, teach people how to track where the money goes, and encourage them to report irregularities or wrongdoing. Will that finally be enough?

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