Government wants to use PEC of Fuels to eliminate Brazil Aid queue

The government and Congress are considering using the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) on Fuels to eliminate the waiting list for the Auxílio Brasil program, according to government officials who informed the Sheet.

For this, the text would reserve a total of R$ 26 billion outside the spending ceiling (the rule that limits the increase in spending to inflation) for extra expenses with the program, just over three months from the first round of the presidential elections. .

The amount would cover both the additional installment of R$200 to be paid to current beneficiaries between August 1 and December 31 of this year and the inclusion of families considered eligible for the Aid on the date of enactment of the constitutional amendment.

Granting the benefit to new families, however, would be an ongoing expense and will need to be included in the next budgets, according to technicians in the government’s economic area.

On Friday (24), the PEC rapporteur, Senator Fernando Bezerra (MDB-PE), had already signaled that he was studying mechanisms to clear the benefit queue.

Interlocutors of Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy) say that he supports the measure.

Internal government simulations indicate that the new amount would be enough to expand the scope of the program to 19.8 million families. Today, about 18.15 million receive the benefit. That is, in theory there would be room to include 1.65 million beneficiaries.

Data from the Ministry of Citizenship obtained by the Sheet via LAI (Access to Information Law) show that the queue was 764,500 families in May 2022. This was the number of people qualified for the program, but who did not receive the benefit due to lack of resources in the Budget.

However, experts have warned of the existence of a “queue in the queue”, as many families still try, without success, to update their registrations to receive the benefit.