Payout of R$600 Emergency Aid to Start Next Week, Says Bolsonaro

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday, April 2nd, that the government’s efforts to pay the R$600 emergency aid are running “full steam ahead” and that payments should start next week.

The aid law was sanctioned by the President on Wednesday, but was published in a special edition of the Federal Gazette on Thursday.

“It’s going full steam ahead, next week it starts being paid,” he said. The text determines payments of R$600 for three months to casual and intermittent workers and individual micro-entrepreneurs to remain at home during the peak of the novel coronavirus crisis.

The amount was negotiated with the government to specifically allow those who can not leave home to work to earn an income. However, an interim measure with an extra credit to cover the R$98 billion of the program’s total cost has yet to be issued.

“I signed the law yesterday (Wednesday), we are hoping to sign another interim measure because it is no use issuing a bad check, you must have credit too,” he said.

Asked whether the interim measure would be published on Wednesday, Bolsonaro merely said “it should be” and mentioned the “huge” bureaucracy surrounding the procedure. “A wrong stroke of my pen is a liability crime. Can you understand that or do you want me to dig my own grave? I’m not going to give you that pleasure,” he declared to reporters who heard him as he left the Alvorada Palace.

The bill’s sanction announced by the President was coupled with a veto of the article that increased the income ceiling for access to the Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC). On the subject, Bolsonaro argued that Congress failed to provide the source of funds to include the measure.

“The law states that there must be a source to pay for this resource, to pay for this benefit. What is the source? Congress failed to provide the source,” he said. He stressed that the provision to include the source is “straightforward” and is included in the Constitution.