União honored BRL 8.96 billion in unpaid debts by states and municipalities in 2021

The National Treasury reported this Friday (7) that the Union had honored R$ 8.96 billion in unpaid debts by states and municipalities in 2021.

The amount honored is the second largest in the series started in 2016, only lower than the amount of BRL 13.33 billion paid off by the Federal Government in 2020.

Last year, most of the bill was paid on debts from the states of Rio de Janeiro (R$4.2 billion), Minas Gerais (R$3.1 billion) and Goiás (R$1.3 billion). The three states account for 96.1% of everything honored by the government in the year.

The Union also paid R$194 million in debts from Amapá and R$156 million from Rio Grande do Norte. The only municipality in the country with a guarantee honored in the year was Belford Roxo (RJ), with a value of R$ 1.56 million.

In total, since 2016, this cost to the federal government amounts to R$ 41.91 billion.

The Union offers guarantees on loans from regional governments with international organizations and financial institutions, which allows entities to obtain financing at lower interest rates.

In case of non-payment, the National Treasury is obliged to honor the debts. Afterwards, the federal government activates counter-guarantees to recover the values. However, entities have been able to stop these charges.

“Due to the fact that the Union is prevented from recovering the counter-guarantees of several States that obtained judicial injunctions suspending the execution of said counter-guarantees, the amounts honored in the year increased the need for financing the federal public debt”, informed the Treasury.