$2.67 billion budget freeze to be enacted Monday
Brasília - President Dilma Rousseff 
President Dilma Rousseff will publish Monday (Nov. 30) a decree establishing a budget freeze of $2.67 billion. The move proved necessary after this year's new fiscal target was not approved by Congress.
According to the Secretariat for Social Communications of the Presidency, the latest decision of the Federal Court of Accounts ruled that the government should freeze discretionary funds in case the revised fiscal target was not approved. The secretariat announced that this is a budgetary problem, not a financial one.
According to the government, the situation is “strictly temporary,” and, once the revision is passed, costs may go back to normal. A detailed technical note should be released on the matter.
Early this year, the government had set the target for the primary surplus (the amount saved in order to pay the interest in the public debt) at $14.71 billion. Nonetheless, difficulties in cutting spending and raising revenues led the economic staff to change the 2015 fiscal target to a primary deficit of $13.66 billion. Due to the acknowledgment of delays in the transfer of funds to public banks, the deficit will rise to $31.84 billion in case it is approved by lawmakers.
Translated by Fabrício Ferreira
Fonte: $2.67 billion budget freeze to be enacted Monday
