Consumer protection expects more regulation – 01/17/2023 – Maria Inês Dolci

Common sense prevailed, and the new president of CEF (Caixa Econômica Federal), Rita Serrano, suspended the granting of payroll loans linked to the former Auxílio Brasil (which was renamed Bolsa Família). In this way, a financial drain that threatened the most vulnerable with over-indebtedness was stopped.

May good regulatory winds like this improve consumer protection!

The federal government has said that the Desenrola Brasil program will facilitate the renegotiation of debts, including those who became indebted with the Aid, created on the eve of last year’s presidential election.

The so-called “repeal” has occurred in previous federal government decrees in various areas, on extremely relevant issues.

For example, the revocation, by Funai (National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples), of the measure that allowed logging in indigenous lands. Authorizing the cutting of wood in these areas would make illegal loggers happy, an authentic disservice to environmental preservation.

Also important was the repeal, by the Ministry of Health, of the ordinance that determined the notice to the police in cases of termination of pregnancy in cases provided for by law. It was a form of intimidation, for example, against pregnant women who, victims of rape, resorted to an abortion authorized by law.

In the field of consumer protection, NGOs such as Idec, Brasilcon and the National Forum of Civil Entities for Consumer Protection were recently at the National Consumer Secretariat (Senacon), in Brasília, and requested the repeal of decrees such as the new SAC and the regulation of the over-indebtedness law.

In the case of the new SAC, I criticized in an article at the time (April last year) the decree that supposedly would update consumer service, but that did not adjust this service to the new technologies and demands of Brazilians and, moreover, set it back.

In September 2022, I lamented that, “in the country of over-indebtedness, the existential minimum has shrunk”. Yes, because the existential minimum (that to be judicially preserved for fundamental commitments, such as food) was defined by the Executive at 25% of the minimum wage. To make matters worse, the decree only guarantees this minimum for consumer debt, leaving out financing, taxes and payroll loans.

Anyway, the hope is that the CDC (Consumer Defense Code) will once again be the metric of public decisions in consumer relations, especially in Senacon, of the Ministry of Justice.

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