Pensions and other benefits supported by Caixa Geral de Aposentação (CGA) will escape financial restrictions this year, according to the Decree-Law Implementing the State Budget for 2023 published yesterday. This exception comes at a time when the number of new pensioners in the public administration rose to almost 17 thousand and the average number of new pensions in one year rose by 219 euros to 1,554 euros, according to data from the 2022 budget implementation.
There are also other expenses that fall outside the radar of financial deductions, such as those related to projects co-financed by European funds, with the National Detached Forces, with the Military Programming Act or with higher education institutions.
The diploma shows that the containment policy has been eased this year, by raising the ceiling from 2% to 4% on the permitted surplus compared to the previous year’s implementation. In this way, the government can absorb salary increases and career advancements in public administration, which average around 3.9%.
According to the decree, “the amounts which, taking into account the cumulative budget implementation until December 2022, exceed by 4% the total value of each of the groupings with regard to personnel costs, are subject to entry in the total budgets of the entities of the central government, excluding variable and incidental fees, other current expenditure and transfers outside government”.
However, this apparent fiscal space may not be enough to offset the impact of inflation, including the housing market, which reached 7.8% last year and this year, according to projections by the Bank of Portugal.
There is also a range of items under flexible management that allows the circulation of funds between services and programmes, as long as this does not increase expenditure without compensation on the revenue side. At the moment there is the regularization of precarious bonds in the public service. Before the conclusion of the Extraordinary Regularization of Precarious Links in Public Administration Program (PREVPAP) or other legally equivalent regularization program, entities of the direct and indirect government of the state and the corporate sector of the state that continue to opening procedures for the recruitment of employees under that program or regime, making the corresponding budgetary changes under flexible management”, refers to the decree-law.
With regard to the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), the diploma promotes a kind of green way for the implementation of more than 16.6 billion euros of the European bazooka, to speed up the allocation of funds and reduce bureaucracy in processes. Approval by the Council of Ministers is therefore no longer required, as was foreseen until now. The decree-law now stipulates that it is sufficient to authorize “the members of the government responsible for the sectoral areas, after confirmation from “Recuperar Portugal” that the expenditure corresponds to the contractual conditions, as well as from the DGO (Directorate- General for the budget) that expenditures are properly recorded in budget systems”. At the moment only 9% of the PRR has actually been paid.
The diploma provides even more financial support for Ukraine after the invasion of Russia. “The state may provide financial support to Ukraine, in particular in the form of personal guarantees, loans or interest subsidies, within the limits provided for in the state budget law, within the framework of macro-financial assistance mechanisms adopted by the European Union or in cooperation instruments” , according to the budget implementation decree.
Salomé Pinto is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
