Bolsonaro says he will pay aid of R$ 600 in 2023 with money from the sale of state-owned companies

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) said this Tuesday (30) that he intends to pay the costs of maintaining Auxílio Brasil at R$ 600 in 2023 with the sale of state-owned companies.

The chief executive, however, did not detail which company linked to the federal government intends to sell. As the sale of controlling interest in state-owned companies needs congressional approval, the procedure is usually time-consuming.

The president also commented on the fact that he did not include in the LDO (Budget Guidelines Law) the forecast of maintaining the aid at R$ 600 next year.

“Is the LDO something fixed? Is it not possible to change it? We have a program to complement that when selling state-owned companies. It will be able to sell. It will have R$ 600 next year”, he said in an interview with the press after participating in an event with presidential candidates of the Union of Trade and Services Entities.

At the beginning of August, the president had stated that the maintenance of the benefit at this level would depend on a PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution).

At the time, the representative did not explain what the content of the proposal would be. Government members, however, have said that it is possible to fit the amount of R$ 600 within the spending ceiling if there is a review of expenses (especially mandatory ones).

Since the beginning of the government, Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy) has defended constitutional changes that allow for the reduction of mandatory expenses. The plan, which he called “3Ds”, would be to de-index, unlink and release the Budget.

In all, three PECs on the subject were sent by the government to Congress in November 2019, but they were dehydrated during processing. Now, the minister has signaled that he wants the proposal to be debated again.