Lira says Chamber will ‘tighten’ government on fuel subsidy

The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), stated that the Chamber will “tighten” the federal government to decide on a fuel subsidy policy. The objective is to try to reduce the price of fuel at the pumps to the final consumer, even more in an election year.

The statement was given in an interview with RecordTV released this Monday (30).

“We are going to pressurize the government this week so that it decides whether or not to make the fuel subsidy. It’s important, everyone is doing it. The governments of the most advanced countries are subsidizing the rise in fuel prices, which is a worldwide problem and interferes in the life of any Brazilian”, he said.

Lira said that the issue of a possible subsidy must be resolved before it is a stabilization fund with dividends from Petrobras, under discussion.

This week, the Chamber should vote at least on the urgent procedure for three projects aimed at reducing the electricity tariff and providing more transparency on the rules for the composition of prices of oil derivatives practiced by Petrobras.

The action takes place amid the discussion and possible vote in the Senate of a bill that limits the ICMS tax rate for public transport, communication, energy and fuel.

The text already approved in the Chamber is resisted by governors and mayors for fear of future revenue losses. The president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), intends to put the project to a direct vote in the plenary in June.

“It’s a decoy [a eventual perda de arrecadação] that governors are selling to overcrowded cashiers, according to a major newspaper, with more than R$320 billion accumulated. The states had an increase from last year to this of more than 40% increase in collection on top of a year that was collected too much, which was 2021. So, the collection is growing at every moment”, said Lira.

Lira once again took a stand in favor of privatizing Petrobras. For him, the company “hides behind the fact that the federal government is [acionista] majority so that all the wear and tear belongs to the federal government and not hers”.

“I am in favor of privatization, because for a long time, Petrobras, for me, lost its social, structural, investment in Brazil nature, of being the pull and traction pole for structuring works. We have nothing on Petrobras’ viewfinder in the very short term, other than the distribution of dividends,” he declared.

However, he said he did not believe that privatization of Petrobras would be possible now “due to polarization” and the need for great support in the National Congress – at least 308 federal deputies.

He then defended the approval of a project that would allow the government to sell Petrobras shares and stop being the majority shareholder in the state-owned company.

On tax reform, under discussion at the Senate’s Constitution and Justice Committee (CCJ), Lira stated that the Proposed Amendment to the Constitution (PEC) “may have difficulties in a year of electoral polarization” and did not rule out that the Chamber is still analyzing the text in the House on the same topic.