On 30.Sep.2025, Transparência Brasil took part in a meeting organized by the Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP-RJ) with the city of Petrópolis (RJ), to follow up on the investigation opened by the prosecutor’s office against the municipality for non-compliance with the Access to Information Law (LAI). The investigation, which began in January 2024, is the result of a complaint filed by TB in December 2023.

At the time, the organization pointed out irregularities in Petrópolis’ Transparency Portal and in responding to requests for information. The conclusions came from the Findings and Requests project, carried out in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) and funded by the Ford Foundation.

For prosecutor Vanessa Katz, TB and Abraji’s complaint was “very timely”, as it dealt with complaints and problems that had been brought to the attention of the MP-RJ, but not in a structured way as in the documentation presented.

The city’s mayor, Hingo Hammes (Progressistas-RJ), the city’s Attorney General Fernando Fernandes and the city’s LAI Coordinator, Vilma Seljan, reported on the measures taken by the administration to comply with the LAI, such as the city’s adherence to the information request management system made available by the federal government, Fala.br. Until the complaint was filed, the city was using an old version of the federal e-SIC system.

According to Seljan, the use of the new platform reduces the occurrence of responses after the legal deadline and allows appeals to be lodged if the response to a request is unsatisfactory or incomplete – thus solving two of the irregular items denounced by TB and Abraji.

The Transparency Portal was reformulated as a result of another MP-RJ investigation against Petrópolis, and now displays the complete data on the municipality’s annual budget execution. In 2023, it was only possible to view the Summary Budget Execution Reports (RREO).

Katz set a deadline of 45 days for the municipality to improve communication about the new information request system (in some areas of the Transparency Portal and the municipality’s website, the link takes the user to the old system). In the same period, Transparência Brasil will carry out tests with requests for information to verify compliance with the LAI and the resolution of irregularities.

Marina Atoji, TB’s director of programs who represented the organization at the meeting, considers the conversation “to be an important development within the framework of the inquiry”. “We hope that our tests will demonstrate Petrópolis’ progress in responding to requests for information, and that this progress will be permanent,” she says.