“There could be much larger expenses, but they are not yet confirmed,” Tebet says about the Budget

BRASILIA-A Minister of Planning, Simone Tebetstated on Tuesday 26th that the challenges to the projections presented by the government in the bimonthly income and expenditure report, the first revaluation of the Balancethey are not accurate.

According to the minister, the report works with currently available data and, therefore, will need to be revised in the next two months. However, he said that management has already made clear that there is the possibility of an increase in expenses, but that adjustments depend on factors still under discussion.

“We ourselves are worried and warn that there could be much larger expenditures. But these expenditures have not yet been confirmed because they depend on the national Congress,” he said, citing proposals such as Perse, payroll tax relief and social security contributions, which interfere with projections of revenue.

As demonstrated by Station/Broadcast, a note prepared by the Consultancy on Budget and Financial Control (Conof) of the Chamber of Deputies indicates that, although the projections presented by the government in the report were “slightly more conservative”, the numbers still remain “optimistic”. Among the highlights, Conof says that social security spending is underestimated by R$20 billion, as public accounts experts have already warned.

The minister said he neither underestimates expenses nor overestimates revenues. “We follow a guide which is the Public Finance Law. We are obliged to work with what we have, with what we receive from Revenue and with what we have in the budget for expenses,” he told journalists after an event at the Agency National Agency for Waterways Transport (Antaq).

However, Tebet doesn’t rule out the possibility that Social Security costs are actually higher, but says there are important definitions that could influence the scenario. “There is a working group that investigates social security fraud. So the spending will depend on how much the INSS is able to save,” she said.

The Planning Minister said the second bimonthly revenue and expenditure report should be more accurate than the one released last week. “The second report is increasingly clear. According to the new rule, we will estimate the revenue according to the first four months, we will see if there will be an increase in revenue and we will be able to put R$15 billion in the budget,” he said.

He referred to the possible opening of an additional credit of R$15 billion in May, depending on revenue performance. However, the secretary of the National Treasury, Rogério Ceron, said in an interview with Estadão that the credit will only be opened if this does not compromise the objective of closing the public finance deficit.