Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Wednesday (12th) this week that the problem with the Workers’ Food Program (PAT) is that “funds are being lost along the way.” According to the minister, resources for this initiative should be allocated to workers, but they are not getting there.
“There were tax benefits for companies that participated in the program, money that was supposed to be distributed to workers, and it ended up reaching restaurants, bakeries, markets, supermarkets. And we started to notice that PAT money was starting to become an intermediary,” he told reporters at the ministry’s headquarters.
The minister added that in addition to not reaching workers, the program had a very high return rate and was inappropriate from a legal perspective. “It’s a series of frauds, but we want to look ahead. That’s why we set a rate that we think is right from a profit standpoint, a more civilized rate.”
Mr Haddad acknowledged that although he believed the new interest rates were more appropriate, they were still high, but stressed that the previous levels were “exorbitant”.
On Tuesday (11th), President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced a Decree establishing new rules for the arrangements responsible for the payment of food vouchers and meal vouchers within the scope of PAT and food aid.
The new rules are expected to save around R$8 billion a year, according to the Ministry of Finance. According to the ministry, this amounts to an average annual profit of about 225 reais per worker.
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