Bolsonaro Announces Four Monthly Payments of R$300 Emergency Aid Benefit

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Tuesday, September 1st, President Jair Bolsonaro announced that the Emergency Aid monthly payments will be R$300 (US$60) for another four months.

The aid amount, established to assist casual workers who lost their income due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, was announced following the President’s meeting with allied Ministers and legislators at the Alvorada Palace.

“We have now decided to extend it [the aid] by interim measure until the end of the year. The amount now set is just over 50 percent of the Bolsa Família (Family Grant). It is R$300,” said the President.

Bolsonaro said the amount is less than the current R$600, but “suits” what is expected of the program.

“The amount of R$600 as we had said, is very high for who pays, in this case, Brazil. We can say that it may not be enough at times for all our needs. But it is basically suitable,” completed the President.

The creation of the aid in April provided three installments of R$600, until June. The aid was extended the first time for two more R$600 installments, and in recent weeks the political and economic wings of the government have been discussing the extended benefit’s new amount.

Paulo Guedes: ‘No one left behind’

Minister of Economy Paulo Guedes made a brief speech immediately after the President’s announcement. He said that Bolsonaro “has left no one behind” in granting the aid.

“By extending this layer of protection to the Brazilian population, the president has left no one behind. And, within the concept of what is possible to do with the resources we have, to extend the amount of R$300 of Emergency Aid for four months,” said the Minister.

The R$300 aid costs a monthly R$25 billion to the federal treasury.

After the end of the Emergency Aid, Bolsonaro intends to start the payments of the Renda Brasil (Brazil Income), a government social program, which has been discussed but has not yet been approved or even submitted to Congress. One of the obstacles is finding the source of the resources to finance the program.

Administrative Reform

The President also reported that the administrative reform proposal will be submitted to Congress on Thursday, September 3rd.

“The administrative reform will be forwarded on Thursday. For the record, it will not reach any of the current civil servants. It will apply only to the future tenured employees”, said Bolsonaro.

The administrative reform has been under discussion since the beginning of the year and is one of the economic team’s main measures for 2020. With the pandemic, the discussion has lost momentum and there were doubts in the political arena as to whether the text would in fact be analyzed later this year.

The reform is intended to change the rules of the public machinery, including eliminating automatic tenure for civil servants. The economic team argues that the measure will cut spending and increase government efficiency.

Source: G1