President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) announced this Tuesday (4) that he intends to grant the payment of the thirteenth of Auxílio Brasil to female heads of households from 2023.
The promise is one of the president’s main strategies to improve his electoral performance in the second round of elections and guarantee his re-election at the head of the country.
“It is already agreed only for women, there are 17 million, starting next year”, he said. The Chief Executive stated that he cannot start paying the 13th this year because of the electoral legislation.
“It’s not even possible because it’s an election year, you can’t deal with this issue now, it’s prohibited by the electoral law. Starting next year, the thirteenth for Auxílio Brasil”, he said.
The Chief Executive also reiterated that he will maintain Auxílio Brasil at R$ 600 next year and said that the government already knows where it will get the resources to pay this cost.
“The Brazilian Aid of R$ 600 is guaranteed for our entire government, this is agreed with Paulo Guedes. Resources, we already know where they will come from”, he said. “Already guaranteed, we have a source to seek this resource”, he added.
The president’s promise, however, has no place in the 2023 budget project sent by the government to Congress. Next year’s PLOA (Annual Budget Bill) contains enough resources for an average benefit of R$ 405 for Auxílio Brasil, below the floor of R$ 600 paid to families between August and December this year.
When asked about the financing of the 13th of Auxílio Brasil for women, Minister Ronaldo Bento (Citizenship) indicated that the lack of space in the Budget would not be an impediment.
“Last year, we went from a minimum amount of R$41 that was paid per family and brought Auxílio Brasil to R$400 and there was also no forecast in the LOA (Annual Budget Law) of 2021. We managed to find resources, with a simple formula , of respect for public resources, without deviation. We know how to do it and we will do it”, he said.
According to the minister, the expansion of the benefit would be limited to women because the female public is the majority among the beneficiaries of the program. “More than 80% of the heads of families benefiting from Auxílio Brasil are women. Women have this attribution of providing sustenance and protecting the family”, he said.
With the biggest rejection of Bolsonaro among women, the president’s campaign has invested in efforts to win the female vote, using first lady Michelle Bolsonaro and emplacing the theme in Bolsonaro’s speeches.
The payment of the 13th of the benefit for women would help the government in the search for rapprochement with the female electorate, in an attempt to boost the campaign for the reelection of the president.
In the first round, Bolsonaro accounted for 43.2% of the votes, against 48.43% for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). The difference in votes between the current president and the PT was just over 6 million.
As for the timetable for the new measure, Bento avoided predictions. “The payment schedule will be released when we close the sheet. The Single Registry, in addition to being in a constant process of modernization, is dynamic. We are actively looking for Brazilian families who are still outside the coverage of Auxílio Brasil” .
“The sheet changes from one month to the next. Eligibility and conditions for staying in the program are taken into account,” he added.
The minister denied that the announcement of measures related to Auxílio Brasil shortly after the first round had electoral bias.
“The political variable never entered the Auxílio Brasil equation,” he said. “We saw the need to make these changes in a structural way in the income transfer program, precisely because we identified these dysfunctions. We could not sit idly by, knowing what to do and how to do it, limited by the electoral period.”
“Why wouldn’t we help the poor population of the country because we are in an election period? We are coming out of the pandemic and in a time of war. Those who are hungry, those who need social protection cannot wait. I cannot, as manager of the social assistance portfolio of our country, give me the luxury of saying that people can wait another 30 days for us to be extending the social benefit, this is not part of our equation”, he continued.
The government’s promise, however, is that the 13th payment to female heads of household beneficiaries of the program would take place from 2023.
Another change in relation to Auxílio Brasil was the anticipation of the October payment calendar. The benefit will start to be paid on the 11th and deposits will end on the 25th, before the second round, which will take place on October 30th. The original calendar provided for deposits between the 18th and 31st of October.
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