Bolsa Família: Government wants to withdraw 1 million from CadÚnico – 03/20/2023 – Market

The Minister of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger of Brazil, Wellington Dias, said this Monday afternoon (20) that the portfolio has the challenge of withdrawing about 1 million people from the Single Registry (CadÚnico) by the end of this year through partnerships with companies, which would recruit workers from the list, and offering credit.

At an event organized by Fiesp (Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo), Dias stated that the government identified around 27 million people regularly registered in the CadÚnico of working age, part of them with medium, technical and higher qualifications.

“They are not there for fraud, they are qualified people who receive Bolsa Família, and who would like an opportunity.”

The minister did not detail the compensation that the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) should offer for companies to adopt the register as a source for hiring, but said that he intends to work together so that CadÚnico is understood as a “social goal “.

“We are going to participate together in this professional qualification program, based on Pronatec [Programa Nacional de Acesso ao Ensino Técnico e Emprego]which was an integration of the public and private sector, with a view to qualifying millions of Brazilians.”

For the audience of directors of the federation, Dias gave as an example the inauguration of a cash and carry unit of the Carrefour group, scheduled to take place this week in Teresina (PI).

“After an understanding with Carrefour, which was about to open this wholesale, [eu] said: ‘go to CadÚnico, select [as pessoas] for you to do the hiring yourself. Not out of benevolence, but because they met the requirement. Most of the people they are going to hire there receive Bolsa Família.”

The PT also stated that the government intends to act on a second front, aiming at the exit of Bolsa Família beneficiaries through entrepreneurship. The plan is to create a BRL 1.7 billion guarantee fund to give low-income entrepreneurs access to credit.

He sees a potential for raising around BRL 20 billion in credit, which could help solve one of the main problems of small borrowers.

“The scene that I want to reproduce across the country is that of families who want to return their Bolsa Família card and exchange it for a formal contract or for people who opened their first business.”

Dias also reinforced that the fine-tooth comb to discover fraud in the program’s registration will continue. During the Bolsonaro government, when the former Bolsa Família was reformulated and was renamed Auxílio Brasil, changes in registration rules generated an unusual number of single-person families (formed by only one person), which indicated that there would be an artificial division of families in search of a greater benefit.

The minister pointed out that, on the one hand, people who were outside the program even meeting the requirements and who were able to enter with the cancellation of irregular registrations of those who did not meet the requirements are still identified.

The payment of the new Bolsa Família, a program that marked the PT’s efforts, began this Monday, with queues at Caixa Econômica Federal branches.

The new version of the social program includes an additional R$150 per child up to six years old who is in school, among other innovations. In March, R$ 14.1 billion will be paid to 21.2 million families

After the criticism leveled at the Bolsonaro government, regarding the dismantling of the social assistance network in states and municipalities, linked to Suas (Unified Social Assistance System) and the use of the program’s registration for electoral purposes, Dias stressed that the Lula government intends to make that the registration is a
tool that is articulated with other government programs.

Families registered as homeless can access the Minha Casa, Minha Vida program, for example. The objective is also to reinforce the protection network so that Brazil leaves the Hunger Map again.

“We removed Brazil from the Hunger Map in 2014, remaining below the 2.5% of Brazilians in extreme poverty. Brazil left the food and nutrition insecurity map in the same year. When we look at income, the Northeast and North have lower income, but the Southeast has the highest malnutrition, it’s not just the Yanomami, we are a country of malnourished men and women.”

The minister also reinforced that the government should resume actions to control Conab (Companhia Brasileira de Abastecimento) stocks, working both as a food security plan and to control inflation.

“It’s necessary to plan what we’re going to export, what’s going to be on the table, what we’re going to import. Plan a stock control policy,” said the minister.

Dias also highlighted the need to reduce interest rates in order to create jobs and encourage entrepreneurship.

Earlier this Monday, the president of Fiesp, Josué Gomes da Silva, even said at an event in Rio de Janeiro, at the BNDES, that interest rates in Brazil are “pornographic”. At the event with Dias, he reinforced his criticism of Selic.

“I wanted to say that I was in my diplomatic mode when I said that interest rates were pornographic. These interest rates do not allow for investments, the question is what justifies these interest rates. It is the subject of debate in the United States that inflationary reasons are justification for these interest rates. “