Finance Minister Fernando Haddad will ask the Federal Court of Audit (TCU) to find a solution that allows the resumption of financing from the Safra 2024/2025 plan. Because of this year’s non -budget approval, expected to be voted only after Carnival, the National Treasury suspended the program’s credit lines.
“Finance Minister Fernando Haddad, who has just returned from the Middle East, will send a letter to the Union Court of Auditors in search of technical and legal support for the immediate resumption of credit lines with equalized resources from the Safra 24/25 plan. The lines were suspended by the National Treasury for legal necessity, due to the non -approval of the Annual Budget Law (LOA) 2025, ”said the Ministry of Finance in a statement.
The folder recalled that the lines of the National Program for the Strengthening of Family Farming (Pronaf), which serves small producers, continue to operate.
On the afternoon of Thursday (20), the National Treasury sent a statement to 25 financial institutions operating the lines of credit to the Safra Plan. The granting of new financing is suspended from this Friday (21) for lack of resources to subsidize the interest of the program.
With R $ 400 billion in credit for medium and large producers, the Safra Plan has lower interest rates than the market. To avoid damage to financial institutions, the National Treasury covers the difference in interest, in a process called equalization.
Because of the increase in the Selic rate (basic interest rates of the economy) in recent months, the Treasury has to spend more resources to equalize interest. Selic went from 10.5% per year in September to 13.25% in January.
Delay
Originally, the 2025 budget should have been approved in December, but the vote was postponed because of the delay in the approval of this year’s Budgetary Guidelines Law (LDO) and the vote on the spending package at the end of last year. According to the rapporteur in the Budget Law project, Senator Angelo Coronel (PSD-BA), the text should only be voted on March 10, the week following Carnival.
As the renewal of the Joint Budget Commission (CMO) of Congress is only scheduled for March 25, the vote may delay further. Over the past 20 years, the budget has only been voted on time three times: in 2013, in 2015 and 2021. However, in those years, the report was sent before the CMO was renewed.
