Government publishes MP to pay Auxílio Brasil of R$400 in December; see calendar

President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) edited the provisional measure that guarantees the minimum payment of R$ 400 to the beneficiary families of Auxílio Brasil in the month of December.

The text creates the so-called “Extraordinary Benefit” and was published in an extra edition of the Diário Oficial da União (DOU) this Tuesday (7).

The measure is effective immediately, which means that 14.5 million families covered by Auxílio Brasil will receive the new amount as of this Friday (10), when this month’s payment schedule starts (see the dates below).

In November, the average value of Auxílio Brasil was BRL 224.41, but Bolsonaro has already promised a transfer of at least BRL 400 by the end of 2022, the year in which he will seek re-election.

The text expressly provides that the Extraordinary Benefit will be equivalent to the amount necessary to reach the amount of R$400.

According to the Ministry of Citizenship, of the total number of families served by Auxílio Brasil, 13 million received less than R$ 400 in November. They will be entitled to the extra value in December.

Although the government indicated the desire to pay a retroactive installment referring to November, when the Extraordinary Benefit did not exist, the MP does not provide any provision in this regard. By the text, the additional installment is instituted “in the competence of December 2021”.

SEE WHEN THE BRAZILIAN AID WILL BE PAID IN DECEMBER:

According to Citizenship, payments will follow the regular schedule of the program

The measure comes even before the government obtains full approval of the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) of the Precatório, which changes the rule for calculating the spending ceiling (which limits the advance of expenses to inflation) and also postpones the payment of part of the judicial debts of the Union against which there is no longer any appeal.

The changes open a space of R$106 billion in the 2022 Budget, of which R$51.1 billion will be allocated to the expansion of the social program.

The proposal was approved in the Chamber, but underwent alterations in the Senate, which requires a new appreciation of the text by the deputies.

This Tuesday (7), the presidents of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), and of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), announced an agreement to slice up the PEC and enact the part that was approved with it writing in both houses. According to Pacheco, the measure will already ensure an extra space of more than R$ 60 billion.

The remaining slack will still depend on the vote of the rest of the PEC, which will be appended to a proposal already in progress and which can be taken directly to the plenary. The appraisal is scheduled for next Tuesday (14).

Before the announcement of the agreement, the coming and going of the PEC negotiations aroused fear within the government of delay in the implementation schedule of the extra portion for the benefit of families, which led the political area to trigger the strategy of the provisional measure.

The MP will allocate R$ 2.67 billion to the extra portion of Auxílio Brasil in December that were previously reserved for Bolsa Família –the brand of PT administrations–, but are now available in the Budget.

The “leftover” exists because, throughout 2021, many families who were part of the program migrated to emergency aid, paid to vulnerable people due to the socioeconomic impacts of Covid-19 and which was financed with resources outside the spending ceiling.

The text also allows the government to define, through a decree, the extra amount to be paid between January and December 2022. According to government technicians, the device leaves the ground ready for Bolsonaro to extend the extra amount of aid until the end of the year that comes as soon as there is room in the Budget for that.

The edition of the decree, however, will depend not only on the promulgation of the PEC dos Precatórios, but also on the modification of the 2022 Budget to include the additional expense with the social program. The inclusion of new families should also be done only after the advance of these two measures, as it depends on the availability of resources.

Last Thursday (2), after a meeting at the Planalto Palace, the Minister of Citizenship, João Roma, said that the payment of R$ 400 to the families of Auxílio Brasil should be made in December, although he did not mention it at the time. the strategy of the interim measure.

“The deadlines [de tramitação da PEC] they are tight, they are beyond what we expected, but they will not be an obstacle for us to fulfill our mission,” stated Roma at the time.

Even with the approval of the Precatório PEC in the Chamber of Deputies, at the beginning of November, Palácio do Planalto had already been working with the edition of the MP as a kind of plan B to ensure payment of the R$ 400 still in December, if the processing the proposal in the Senate took longer than expected — which ended up happening.