President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said this Friday (22) that he “would not expect”, from the previous management of Petrobras, a cut in the price of gasoline. Now, he said, he sees chances of a further reduction if oil becomes cheaper.
“I think with the old board [da Petrobras] we would not expect to decrease these R$0.20 and this R$0.20 makes a difference. I haven’t seen Brent’s barrel as it is today. Yesterday it was about $100 or so. If it drops a little more, I’m not going to say it will, but Petrobras will certainly review the price down,” he said.
Petrobras announced, on Tuesday (19), a 4.9% reduction in the average sale price of gasoline by its refineries. Since Wednesday, the liter of fuel is sold, on average, for R$ 3.86, a cut of R$ 0.20.
The president said that, with the new formation of the company, with the changes made by him in charge of the company, it should fall again.
This Friday, Bolsorado also estimated that the new budget cut could reach R$ 8 billion. The president’s forecast is higher than the initial expectation of members of the Ministry of Economy, who spoke of R$ 5 billion.
The government needs to contingency resources from the 2022 Budget in order not to breach the constitutional rule of the spending ceiling.
“It’s hard to work with a budget like that, in a cast. We have this extra cut [que pode ser que] reach almost R$ 8 billion”, Bolsonaro told journalists this morning.
The deadline for the government to publish the blockade is this Friday. The numbers must be announced through the income and expenditure report, which the government must publish bimonthly, and the areas to be cut must only be detailed later.
The chief executive did not detail which areas should be contingency. “When something arrives that goes beyond what was expected, I have to cut it. Where are you going to cut it? If it cuts education, it complains. If it cuts health, it complains”, said the president.
“Everyone will have a complaint, it’s natural. I’m obliged to comply with the legislation”.
​Currently, around R$ 10 billion are already allocated in the Budget, considering the reserve of R$ 1.7 billion for readjustments and restructuring.
The most recent blockade, detailed in June, mainly hit the ministries of Science, Education and Health.
In the case of the Science Ministry, there was a cut of R$ 2.5 billion from the R$ 6.8 billion previously foreseen in the so-called discretionary funds (which the government can postpone, unlike the mandatory ones). The scissor is equivalent to 36% of the total.
In Education, the scissor was R$ 1.6 billion out of a total of R$ 22.2 billion in discretionary (7.2% of the total). Health, on the other hand, received a cut of R$ 1.2 billion out of a total of R$ 17.4 billion (also 7.2% of the total).
The ministries of Defense (equivalent to 6.2% of discretionary), Tourism (5.6%), Communications (5.6%) and Foreign Affairs (5.6%) also underwent cuts. Also on the list are the Presidency of the Republic (5.65%) and the Central Bank (5.6%). Rounding out the list are Justice (4.2%), Regional Development (3.8%), Women (3.7%), Mines and Energy (3.4%), Infrastructure (2.6%) and Citizenship (2.1%).
Bolsonaro’s statements this morning came during a visit to a gas station in the federal capital. Although the place is known in BrasÃlia for having motivated the beginning of Operation Lava Jato, for being used as a meeting point for paying bribes, the president went to inspect and celebrate the reduction in fuel prices.
The president was accompanied by the Minister of Mines and Energy, Adolfo Sachsida, and Augusto Heleno, from the GSI.
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