BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Friday he intends to open room for higher infrastructure spending by changing the country’s spending cap rule after the presidential election in October.
“Last year we had about 300 billion reais ($61.27 billion) in excess revenue, but you can’t spend a penny of that on infrastructure because of the spending cap,” the far-right president said during a radio interview.
“A lot of people say this is something that needs to be changed. We will leave it for the future, we will discuss this issue after the election”, he added.
Bolsonaro, who is trailing leftist former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in opinion polls, also said the Infrastructure Ministry’s annual budget, which is currently at 8 billion reais, was not enough to meet Brazil’s needs.
The spending cap was approved by the Brazilian Congress in 2016 as a way to control public spending, limiting the growth of federal spending to inflation levels.
($1 = 4.8967 reais)
(Reporting by Ricardo Brito; Writing by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Paul Simao)
