The Senate approved today (16) a bill (PL) establishing the National Program for Assistance to the Mobility of the Elderly in Urban Areas (Pnami). The program consists of transferring funds from the Union Budget to pay for free urban transport for people over 65 years of age. At the same time, other public transport users would benefit from lower fares. The project remains for consideration by the Chamber.
“The urban public transport system in the cities and in the DF, which was already in a precarious financial situation, resulting from a historical process of growing mismatch between its income and expenses, suffered an acute impact with the drop in collection due to the pandemic of coronavirus. covid-19”, justified the project’s rapporteur in the Senate, Eduardo Braga (MDB-AM).
“In this sense, if the public transport system collapses, one of the groups that would suffer most from the end of services would be precisely the elderly, who enjoy the right to free access in the system”, added the emedebista. The proposal is that the program lasts for three years, starting from the year of approval of the PL.
The budget impact predicted by the rapporteur is R$ 5 billion per year. Braga proposes to link part of the revenue from oil royalties to finance the transfer. “It should be noted that revenue from royalties of oil belonging to the Union is more than enough to finance the new expenditure. In 2021, for example, only the share of royalties appropriated by the Union exceeded R$ 11 billion, more than double what was projected”, he argued in his report.
The text also provides for the Union to open extraordinary credit to fund the program. To receive the funds, the project indicates that the states, the Federal District and the municipalities establish their respective collective public transport funds in order to receive the financial contributions.
