Unfortunately, and especially because no one reacts, our lawmakers keep creating simplistic and unnecessary laws that, if not ill-intentioned, are naïve and only increase the difficulties we face in our daily lives to survive. Sometimes these laws are curious, sometimes ridiculous. For example:
1 – It is mandatory to post the warning “check if the elevator is stopped on this floor before entering”! Well, assuming that people will be attentive enough to read warnings, but not enough to see the hole in front of them, is, in practice, idiocy.
2 – The labels on bottled mineral water must say: GLUTEN-FREE. Is there water with gluten? Could it be the one from CEDAE? It’s absurd!
3 – Egg cartons say: “20 Extra A Eggs”, but they are required to include this precious detail: ALLERGENIC, CONTAINS EGGS. Imagine if eggs didn’t contain eggs. At least they haven’t yet made it mandatory to specify that they are from hens (and not roosters).
4 – And on the roads: “radar off” (there are at least two on BR 101, in Itaboraí, for over five years). What could be the motivation for these warning signs? Maybe someone from the DNER, seeing so much nonsense, thought that nonsense helps progress, as Rui Barbosa said, and “rolled up their sleeves.”
5 – And the first aid kits, fire extinguishers (federal laws), which are mandatory in cars, no longer exist? How many fines?
6 – And the waste incinerators, then the shredders, which were mandatory for a long time in Rio?
I have the impression that, here in Rio, we are champions in these things. If it’s to create obstacles or unnecessary complications, “we’re in.” Or is it on purpose, so that inspectors can fine (or not) anyone who forgets to include one of these notices? It saddens me to say this because my entire family is from Rio.
We are entering March 2023, the deadline for yet another one of these foolishness: “all commercial and residential consumers will be required to have their gas installations inspected every five years.” (Curiously, this does not apply to public, industrial, or service buildings).
This is to comply with state law 6.890/14 (originating from bill 762/2007 by then-state deputy Alessandro Lucciola Molon, who was part of the PT at the time and now belongs to the PSB). I wonder: What could have been the motivation of this Belo Horizonte-born lawyer (1971) to propose this law? Was there some unfortunate accident? A rarity in ten million? Does he believe that with this law, accidents will no longer happen or will be significantly reduced? Should we start banning people from being born because life is dangerous?
To brag about presenting and approving many laws? After all, these laws, besides contributing nothing, cost nothing; it’s just about approval. The cost falls on the “suckers.” Punish everyone because of one case or another, which will always happen and will always be lamented. They will always happen because unexpected events always occur.
Well, Molon is an intelligent person, enough not to get tangled in a mess like this, although it may have been naïve advice or an unfortunate moment that we all can have, or even a little demagoguery that slipped by (maybe an adversary helped). It shouldn’t have been approved! After all, it’s a law that assumes that the resident is capable of paying a very expensive property tax (IPTU), but isn’t capable of taking care of their own property. It must have been sabotage against Molon.
When it seemed that this law was going to be yet another one of those that “didn’t stick” (since it had been from 2007 to 2014 and was falling into oblivion), the AGENERSA (Energy and Sanitation Regulatory Agency of the State of RJ) appeared in September 2018, just before the elections (with F. Dornelles as governor), and published IN 73 (Regulatory Instruction), making the joke a reality: it mandates the obligation of safety inspections on gas installations for residential and commercial units every five years, to be conducted by companies accredited by INMETRO (code name “OIA – Authorized Inspection Organization,” yes, there’s even an acronym to make it look serious and organized).
What was already unnecessary has become an even bigger absurdity: why “accredited by INMETRO” and with professionals registered with CREA? Don’t the engineering schools, which are regulated by the MEC, award diplomas to those who pass? Don’t those diplomas authorize graduates to practice their professions in their specialties? Why can’t engineers practice their profession as independent professionals (as they already do with building self-inspections)?
It’s absurd that a qualified engineer, who has studied and passed the course on building installations (water, sewage, gas, air conditioning, low-voltage electricity, telecommunications), has to hire “accredited” companies to inspect their own house, whose installations they designed and inspect every day. Can’t they practice their profession freely? If that’s not unconstitutional, what is?
And no one complains! Not the Engineering Club, not CREA, not the unions, not the schools, not Molon, who has already protested about so many just causes! No one! How much does this silence cost? Who benefits from it?
Why does ABNT almost act like a legislator (even though it’s an NGO)? Informally, I consulted colleagues from Belo Horizonte, São Paulo, and Florianópolis. It seems there is no self-inspection for buildings or gas installations. And it doesn’t seem like there are more or fewer accidents over there.
Is this just more bureaucracy that we’ll have to pay for? Another cost for Rio de Janeiro? A shame for engineering as well. Instead of doing engineering, we’re becoming bureaucrats.
It seems there are only 10 (ten) companies accredited by INMETRO, and the service must be completed by the end of March 2023. Will they cut off gas to more than half of Rio de Janeiro? Maybe to 100% of low-income communities? I’ll want to see. Even Copacabana has many low-income buildings.
Rio-Light, which claims to be in economic and financial difficulty because it can’t cut off electricity for delinquents and clandestine users, should be alert; maybe a similar law, a “building electrical inspection,” could give it the legal backing to do so? It would stop being an action against the “poor” and become a “protection” for those who might electrocute themselves by accident. Brilliant!
On the other hand, these inspections, costing between R$ 300 and R$ 500 per unit, are bound to be fraudulent. No one in their right mind would inspect, properly, a building in Copacabana, over 60 years old, surrounded by two others, for less than R$ 100,000. They’re charging R$ 5,000!
The good part of this is that they’ll end up proving the uselessness of CREA or even creating competition. I’m curious: who will win? CREA? INMETRO? ABNT? Or something yet to come?
The first gas accident after inspection and all the laws are complied with—who will compensate the victims? INMETRO? OIA? ABNT? AGENERSA? Molon? And who will compensate the person electrocuted by the electric shower because they cut off the gas?
Some gyms offer two options to their students: either bring a medical certificate or fill out a self-declaration about their problems or the absence of them, and if a student has a “fainting” episode in the gym, the gym is reasonably protected because the student took responsibility for themselves. No law was needed.
When the dams in Mariana and Brumadinho collapsed, they were all up to date with CREA, INMETRO, ABNT, and, they say, even the local churches. But they collapsed. Because instead of having respected and well-paid engineers, with time to think about what they are doing, the money goes to mandatory, useless bureaucracies. And it generates reports with immediate profits, fictitious in the medium term, causing accidents, but impressing shareholders and ultimately generating bonuses for directors in the years they are in charge. That’s where the problems lie. The rest is Molon—sorry, softness. Is it brave? Go ahead and mess with it, I want to see.
It’s the industry of useless “licenses” holding back the country. They are the hereditary captaincies that remain. This time led by INMETRO, outside of its necessary standardization role, I might add.
Without wanting to blame others for our “childishness,” after all, they’re defending their own interests, we must defend ours. I agree with a colleague who always says that more developed countries, already involved in the costs of improving quality of life because they have surpassed hunger and misery, subsidize and encourage many of these useless activities through the spreading of half-truths, so we can have the same costs as they do and not produce our own products and investments for lower prices than theirs.
Finally, it must be said that, due to the deafening silence of the already mentioned and not mentioned entities, and other public and private bodies, I was worried that I was seeing ghosts. So, I presented a draft of this article to colleagues like Adir BenKauss, Alan Arthou, Eduardo Jordão, Flávio Miguez, Luiz Edmundo C. Leite, Haroldo M. Lemos, Pedro Celestino, and others, at various stages of their careers, in search of feedback and comments, so that it wouldn’t be said that I was speaking alone. I only received support and, in some cases, even more pointed suggestions, which comforted me.
Miguel Fernández y Fernández, Consulting Engineer and Columnist. Rio de Janeiro, published on Diário do Rio, March 3, 2023.
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