Last Monday, the 11th, at the Meeting of New Mayors in Brasília, the federal government launched Contrata + Brasil. The platform will allow the registration and hiring of individual microentrepreneurs (MEIs) by the federal government, states, and municipalities across the country. Currently, maintenance and small repair services, which are already exempt from bidding, can be contracted. In this first phase, the estimate points to a potential opportunity to democratize around R$ 6 billion annually in new contracts.
To participate in Contrata+Brasil, suppliers simply need to register using the gov.br login and indicate the services they provide. Relevant demands will be notified via WhatsApp to the provided phone number. The first contracts will be made by the federal government, but the platform is also open for adoption by state and municipal administrations.
Cooperation
The idea for the portal emerged from a pioneering initiative by the Recife city hall, which is being expanded nationwide with the support of technology provided by Serpro. During the meeting, a symbolic cooperation agreement was signed between the federal government’s technology company, the Ministries of Management and Innovation (MGI) and Entrepreneurship, Micro, and Small Businesses (MEMP), the Brazilian Industrial Development Agency (ABDI), the Federal Attorney General’s Office (AGU), and the Recife city hall’s Secretariat of Science, Technology, and Innovation.
“Contrata+Brasil is a response to an important discussion about public accounts in Brazil. It is an initiative to change our procurement processes by strengthening local suppliers,” announced MGI Minister Esther Dweck. According to the minister, Brazil has 16 million MEIs, with only 70,000 registered in the federal government’s supplier database—just 0.4% of the total.
Esther Dweck added that her ministry’s role is not only to bring federal government programs to states and municipalities but also to identify good initiatives from other entities and expand them nationwide. “Thus, we thank AGU for ensuring legal security, Serpro for executing the platform’s expansion, and Sebrae for its work in qualifying MEIs.”
Best Practices
“Every good practice can be replicated and deserves to be adopted. We will collaborate, leveraging Serpro’s expertise and technological capacity, in this expansion process led by MGI,” stated the president of the public company, Alexandre Amorim. “This technology will democratize access to public procurement for microentrepreneurs, boosting the dynamism of the local economy. Carrying out an initiative like this is making cities thrive,” he added.
Amorim also took the opportunity of the cooperation agreement signing to announce Prefeitura+Digital, a program by the federal government’s technology company that promotes modernization and the development of digital services for cities with up to 30,000 inhabitants.
For MEMP Minister Márcio França, the new operational logic of the government should, above all, be proactive. “This Recife initiative, which inspired Contrata+Brasil, reverses the standard where citizens demand and wait for the State to act. Now, it is the State seeking out citizens, creating benefits for both sides,” he explained.
