Grain exporters asked the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, to end the mobilization of Federal Revenue auditors. In a letter sent last week, the National Association of Cereal Exporters (Anec) reported that there is a delay in issuing phytosanitary certificates, necessary for the exporter to receive payment.
“Imagine you can count on a cash inflow of US$ 44 million and not receive it,” the general director of Anec, Sérgio Mendes, told Valor. This is the approximate value of the soybean load on a ship.
At the moment, issuing the document is taking close to five days, when the normal would be two days. “The perspective is that, in the very short term, it will arrive in ten days”, he warned.
With a delay of this extent, the executive said, the loss will be impossible to absorb. Therefore, the entity decided to pressure the government before exporters' revenues are more severely affected.
The absence of phytosanitary certificates prevents the cargo from unloading in its destination country. In this case, a fee called demurrage is charged on the stopped ship. The executive has no news that this is currently happening. In the past, it was not uncommon for exporters to take airliners to take documents to the importing country, to speed up customs clearance.
The problem of slow certificates mainly affects the port of Santos (SP), where around three ships of soy and derivatives depart per day.
According to Mendes, the IRS's standard operation slowed down the inspection of the shipment of cotton containers. Almost all shipments of this product leave the country through Santos, he said.
In a kind of cascade effect, the delay affected the work of agricultural inspectors, who issue phytosanitary certificates. There is an accumulation of cargo to be verified, which is why delays in issuing documents are increasing.
In addition to this problem, the deadline for releasing goods in Santos increased from 24 hours to at least 20 days, reports the National Union of Tax Auditors (Sindifisco).
The entity adds that, from Tuesday to Thursday, auditors do not access the Revenue systems and therefore there is no clearance of goods. The exceptions are medicines, hospital supplies, live animals, perishable products and on-board supplies.
Also according to Sindifisco, the end of the movement of inspectors was also requested by the Union of Customs Brokers, in correspondence sent to the Civil House.
“It is very important that those interested in the speed of international trade and customs control contact the government”, said the president of Sindifisco Nacional, Isac Falcão. He added that there will be even greater losses with the Revenue's budget collapse, “which is looming”.
The movement of Revenue inspectors began in December 2021 and is marked by strikes, standard operations and the handover of leadership positions. There are three main reasons: the lack of regulation of a law that deals with the payment of performance bonuses, the lack of public competitions for staff replacement and the cut of R$ 1.2 billion in the agency's budget in 2022.
Of the budget resources cut, half refer to projects in the technology area, said Falcão. In other words, new systems are experiencing delays in their development.
The expectation in the technical area of the Ministry of Economy is to restore the department's funds with the reallocation of funds within the 2022 Budget.
By Lu Aiko Otta — From Brasilia
24/03/2022
Source: Valor Econômico