Temer Seeks Suspension of Salary Adjustments and Wants to Bar Increase for Supreme Court

08/23/2016 - 11h56

Interim President Michel Temer asked his allies in Congress to temporarily suspend voting on bills that would readjust salaries for public servants and wants to bar a salary increase for Ministers of the Federal Supreme Court.

The idea is to wait not only for the conclusion for the impeachment process for suspended president Dilma Rousseff, whose judgement by the Senate will begin this Thursday (the 25th), but also for the voting on a proposed ceiling for public spending, which would limit increases in spending to the amount of inflation measured in the previous year.

After facing criticism due to concessions made in the fiscal area, the Temer government wants to show that it won't approve salary increases before guaranteeing the approval of measures to limit increases in public spending.

Temer decided to accede to the request of the PSDB party, which is against readjustments because of the economic crisis and due to the impact that they would have on personnel expenses for the Federal Government, the States and municipalities. There is no guarantee, however, that the agreement will be upheld, since other allies are in favor of the increases.

Right after Temer took over as interim President, the Government sanctioned a package of readjustments for a wide variety of public functionaries, which will have a cumulative financial deficitary effect of R$ 68 billion (US$ 21 billion) by 2018.

The compromise made Temer the target of criticism and distrust for increasing public expenditures in the middle of an economic recession and at the same time that the government is forecasting to close the fiscal year with a budget deficit of R$ 170,5 billion (US$ 53 billion).

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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