Suspended from Friday night (18) due to lack of resources, the printing of passports by the Federal Police (PF) will receive an immediate reinforcement of BRL 37 million from the Ministry of Economy. The remaining R$37 million depend on the approval of a supplementary credit project by the National Congress.
This information was provided today (22) by the special secretary for the Treasury and Budget of the Ministry of Economy, Esteves Colnago. According to him, the extra contingency (blocking) of R$ 5.7 billion from the Budget will not affect the PF service.
In a press conference to explain the contingency, Colnago said he had met with the president of the Mixed Budget Committee (CMO) of Congress, deputy Celso Sabino (União Brasil-PA). According to the secretary, the parliamentarian undertook to speed up the processing of the credit to guarantee approval before the end of the year.
“We are not going to run out of issuing a passport, it will be supplemented [ter verbas remanejadas de outra área]”, said the Federal Budget Secretary of the Ministry of Economy, Ariosto Culau. He said passport printing is considered an essential government service.
Since September, the Ministry of Justice has asked for BRL 74 million to recompose the budget to meet the demand for issuing passports. Resources had been contingency (blocked) in September, to prevent the federal spending ceiling from bursting.
This is not the first time that passport issuance has been suspended due to lack of funds. In 2017, the Federal Police stopped providing the document for a few weeks. At the time, the government asked for a extraordinary credit (outside the spending ceiling) of BRL 102 million to solve the problem.
Rate
Issuing passports costs BRL 257.25 per person. The fee, however, does not remain with the Federal Police, but is transferred to the single account of the National Treasury. It is up to the Treasury to release the resources according to the availability of funds, used by the Federal Police to pay the Mint, which prints them. The General Budget of the Union for 2022 foresees an allocation of R$ 217.9 million for the issuance of passports. According to the PF, all the money has already been pledged (it had been authorized).
