Petrobras will not have to fulfill state-owned surplus target. Government grants to allow that LDO should be approved without delays.

National Congress has approved on Wednesday (15) the Budgetary Guidelines Bill (LDO) for 2010. Among the voted text mainly news, is the reduction of up to R$ 22,5 billion (about US$ 11,6 billion) of the funds to be conserved with the primary surplus, to utilize them on Growth Acceleration Program (PAC) projects next year. The matter now depends of approval.

Other new is exclusion of Petrobras’ obligation from fulfilling state-owned surplus target (0,2% of the Gross Domestic Product). This will allow more flexibility to the company on the projects execution, including PAC.

Investments
The bill was reported at the Floor by the member of the chamber João Leão (PP-BA). He participated of the negotiations which resulted mostly on the exclusion of some report topics passed on Joint Committee on the Budget.

Still as part of the agreement made in the evening, works and services global cost hired by the Federal Government will continue to be obtained from lower prices or equivalent to raw materials and customized services average costs, referring to official price lists. This rule is the same from LDO of 2009.

However, additional rules where included to the government request. The control agencies must define the methodology of selection of the most relevant items that corresponds to up to 80% of the global cost and who wins the bid will not be obligated to adopt lower offer unity costs from who lost.

In case of a work, for example, the winner company for the global cost cannot be charged, by the public administration, using lower prices of isolated items referring to the proposal of who lost the bid.

In a new text presented by João Leão and approved by the representatives, it was allows the withhold, by the federal government, of agreements resources with states and municipalities when evidenced irregularities or pendencies referring only to these same agreements.

Social Targets
The Executive Branch must send on August, with the budget proposal, a statement of the mainly social targets from each action. The financial amounts and targets of each social program must be identified, the previous years securities e the planned ones for the year of 2010.

Reporting - Eduardo Piovesan e Janary Junior
Editing- João Pitella Junior
Translation – Grupo Solucion/Carolina P.C.M.