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Leonardo Rolim, president of the National Institute of Social Security (INSS), took office on January 29, practically a month before the first case of covid-19 in Brazil. However, in the face of the pandemic, the organ’s greatest challenge remains the same, passed from gesture to gesture: reducing the stock of more than 1 million requests for benefits without response. In an interview with MailRolim guarantees that the number dropped, despite unexpected obstacles. “The water was at the level of the nose. Now it’s down, “he says.
A former secretary of Social Security at the Ministry of the Economy, he was not surprised by the pending problems, but faced unforeseen events, such as the increased demand for sickness aid during the pandemic. The number of orders increased from approximately 100,000 to approximately 500,000, he says.
Another situation that concerns the Continuous Service Benefit (BPC), mainly the portion that pays low-income disabled people. While parliamentarians seek to broaden the scope of aid, which would cost R $ 20 billion more per year, the INSS has paid part of it before concluding the analysis of applications, to try to save the poorest during the crisis. . The question is whether these people will be neglected when they are three months in advance.
Rolim ensures that the BPC has priority in the queue and that the problem is resolved in time. He expects the entire stock to be analyzed “well before” October, but he knows that the surge in demand for medical expertise when agencies reopen, which is expected to occur on May 22, may make the task more difficult. “When I return to the on-site service, there will be a good line for experts,” he admits. See the main parts of the interview:
Among the actions announced during the pandemic, the INSS promised to anticipate the 13th salary of pensioners and retirees and to provide better conditions for payroll loans. How much has been injected into the economy by these measures?
Around R $ 50 billion before wages. We have finished paying the first installment, now, on the April sheet. The second comes out on the May sheet. No additional expenses, because it was an amount that would already be spent in the year. But extra money at the time of the emergency. The increase in the number of installments and the reduction in payroll interest should put an additional R $ 15 billion in the economy at this time. This is done by banks.
And how much will be allocated before R $ 600, for three months, of the Continuous Service Benefit (BPC) to people with disabilities who were in the queue?
The estimated value of R $ 360 million. We have already processed around 140,000 advances. But there must be a higher number, because some people have had demand. In other words, they have a pending record. We hope to extend the benefit to them.
What’s missing?
You have a group of around 30,000 with simple registration problems. Children with disabilities who have not informed who the legal guardian is, for example. But there is another group with a problem in the Cadastro nico (Cadnico, used by the federal government to pay welfare benefits). In these cases, I don’t know if we will be able to assist during the emergency. This is a much larger number, more than 200 thousand people.
These people cannot receive the advance?
. For these, we will not be able to anticipate.
Does INSS pay retroactively when the person solves the pending problem and has the record approved?
Yes. When it is done, there in the front, the settlement of accounts, you will receive the BPC from the requested date. The advance is made in up to three installments. I speak of three because, if we can evaluate the grant request before paying the third, the advance becomes the benefit. The person begins to receive the value of a minimum wage (R $ 1,045) per month, which is the BPC, and receives the retroactive date on which he applied for the benefit, discounting what he received in advance. If the person applied for in January and was granted in June, they received the advance payment for April and May. Two months, not three. But he was entitled since January. Then, the INSS pays from January to May, deducting the R $ 1.2 thousand that it received from these two installments.
The payment lasts three months, that is, until June. In general, the INSS takes much longer to grant the BPC. Is the person unaided in the meantime?
We hope that before that (the deadline) we can reapply the (analysis) instruments and, when we return, they will be priority audiences. We will give BPC the highest priority, because they are vulnerable people and we have to prioritize those who need income most.
So will those who requested BPC continue to queue? Will you stay upstairs?
Vo.
But today, BPC is the benefit that takes the longest to be granted …
Yes This was something that embarrassed me. Looking at the INSS queue, which was, and still is, the organ’s biggest challenge, and seeing that, because BPC is the most complex benefit received, it was the one with the most people in the queue and for the longest time . In quantity, it was the largest. And in time, it does not compare. It was more than double the rest.
And has it changed? How are you now
Very soon we will have everything evaluated. Only those in demand will remain online. We are working safely so that we have all benefit requests on time in October. But we will do it sooner.
This year, the number of requests, not just for PCBs, reached 1.9 million, including those within the 45-day response period. How is the situation today?
We make a lot of progress. All queues have been greatly reduced. I must have less than 300 thousand cases with more than 45 days that have not yet been analyzed. I only have almost 900 thousand in demand. So the entire line is still over a million. But in fact, if you look at it without demand, it has dropped dramatically. Most of the applications have already been analyzed, but there is a pending problem that depends on the insured to solve. Complementary document or correction of the cadastral problem.
Didn’t the number of claims for benefits increase during the pandemic?
In some cases, yes. That is the point. There is a reasonable queue for help sickness, which hardly existed before. There are around 500,000 requests for sickness assistance.
For the coronavirus?
Exactly Part of this group was already scheduled, but didn’t get the experience. But it was a minority. Most were later. There were about 100,000 more or less scheduled.
But, is the INSS managing to satisfy the demand?
We are starting to grant it now. He had to develop a new system. Once developed, the experience began to do the analyzes. Since 2018, we did not have a long line of help sickness. The average time to carry out the investigation, when the pandemic came, was 15 days, very low. Now with branch closings, it is no longer on-site and has increased a lot in April. In May, it will return to something close to the previous level. A little more, probably. Because, when it gets easier, a lot of people just need to see if it sticks. A, create a complete job for the expert to analyze the certificate and then, when you go to see, the person is not insured.
Will it be necessary to re-analyze all these processes to carry out the research?
If the person is not insured, there is no need to deny it. Even without skill. But those who receive anticipation will have to.
That is, there will be a great demand for experience later …
Go. When you return to the on-site service, have a good line for experts.
And how will INSS deal with this? Increase the number of experts?
Yes. It will increase. In the announcement that came out to hire temporary staff, it is also planned to hire experts.
s for ex-servants and reserve soldiers?
It has INSS retiree vacancies and medical experts to provide areas of analysis and expertise. Another assistance group and intermediate area, in the INSS, the Social Security Secretariat and the People Management Secretariat. This can be for inactive military personnel or retired servers from any Union agency. There is no limit for INSS retirees. At first, everyone who meets the criteria will be hired.
But temporary hiring was announced as a strategy to reduce the queue even before the crisis. Is the contracted amount enough?
I don’t know I have no idea The ad was launched and registration started last Monday.
If you need to increase the number of experts later, do you have the possibility to issue another notice? Or have you already exceeded budget capacity?
You have to see it. I do not know
When should this process end? Can they get to work?
We hope that, between the end of May and the beginning of June, we are already hiring.
Does queue shortening, in your opinion, mean you don’t need to permanently hire servers, despite the deficit?
It shows that we have greater capacity. And it’s not just this main line of initial requirements. There were other queues that we are also reducing. The idea is to have no queue with an expired application. Another one that was growing a lot was maintenance. In the case, for example, of a person who needs a proxy to receive a benefit or who had a benefit suspended because they did not do a life test and need to correct the problem. Or PCB that did not have Cadnico and was suspended. There are several situations that had a maintenance queue.
How many were in that group?
More than 500,000 applications were stopped and it was only growing. Now he has less than 100,000. It has fallen since the beginning of the year. More specifically, from February to c. I can say that this line will already be done. What is now flowing, in stock.
Basically what is left now to clear the grant queue?
There are other queues, but they cause fewer problems. One, which gave a lot of headache, the implementation of judicial decisions. Because the judge does not always have patience and imposes a fine. There is a judge who is more rigid, who even threatens to arrest the INSS manager. And that was another line that worried us a lot. We reduced a lot, today the flow is practically alone. It also had a resource and review queue. We are moving forward in May.
Is this when benefits are denied and the person appeals?
Yes, it appeals. I review when you request to recalculate the benefit amount for any reason. All queues are important. Ideally, nothing is in stock. But, since there was a queue in everything, we are giving priority to those who do not receive it or to those who have not yet been analyzed. The guy who appealed sometimes doesn’t get it, but at least he’s had an analysis. You do not have to prioritize this over what you have not yet evaluated. The water was at nose level, now it has dropped. We can analyze other queues.
Since BPC will be evaluated first, does this line clear before October?
Well before. As long as the emergency passes and we open the agencies.
If the BPC queue is still moving slowly, what should be done? A person who receives the advance now, but only has the BPC granted in September, for example, would have at least two months without anything. Is there a possibility to extend the measurement time?
I would have to change the law.
Do you think that is the case?
I don’t know I don’t think I think before that we will reopen (agencies). But I don’t have a crystal ball. If it is not reopened, the case of rethinking the law. But that goes for emergency help, for everything. The same logic as all the emergency measures adopted now, due to the expectation that, after three months, the economy has returned to normal or, at least, something closer to normal.
Congress also proposed a series of measures and, in one, approved the expansion of access to the PCB, changing the income criterion to half the minimum wage. The STF kept the change. Really?
Unsustainable It would have an impact of R $ 20 billion per year. The problem is not the fact that it costs R $ 20 billion this year, from R $ 20 billion each year. Continuing expenses. It would be an irresponsible and unconstitutional measure, so much so that the Supreme Court overthrew it. Both the Constitution and the Fiscal Responsibility Law (LRF) establish that, when expenses are created, they must present or reduce expenses or new income that compensates.
The understanding of the Senate, when approving the measure, was that it was a delicate moment. The most vulnerable will need help, and therefore the scope of the benefit would need to be broadened. What do you think of that?
It is one thing to look at the current situation. In an emergency, it is okay to make compensatory policies. This is an unusual year. Emergency aid, anticipation of PCBs, anticipation of sickness aid are important things at the moment. Also, the payment of suspended taxes, the suspended employment contract. These are measures that have a large but short-term fiscal impact. The expansion of BPC is already a continuous expense. The logic must be the other way around: if, this year, I have to spend a lot, I have to control spending in the coming years. We will have a very large deficit this year, totally justified, but then he will have to control, tighten his belt.
Would this change go against the proposed Social Security reform?
This expansion of the PCB would have a greater effect than that of the entire reform. It is only from the third year that the impact of the reform would be greater. Social Security reform is one more thing that will help Brazil out of the crisis later. Imagine if you hadn’t?
In the case of prepayment, for those who have a family income of more than a quarter of the minimum wage per capita (R $ 261.25, current criterion for granting the benefit), is it automatically denied?
In such cases, no. When the income is higher, it is not rejected immediately, because there is a public civilian who allows the person to present documentation that shows that he had some expenses that could reduce the income. With medications, diapers, special food, among others. We deny, immediately, if we identify that the person who wants to receive the municipal public servants of BPC, for example. A, you deny it immediately. You can not
Was your request denied too much?
There is a part that is denied because the BPC has an income criterion. If the person does not respond or is already receiving another benefit, they are automatically denied. Generally, on average, half of the requests are denied. This is after going through the three stages of income, social and medical evaluation.
Does it mean that half of those who asked will not succeed?
In anticipation, since income is only evaluated, the percentage denied is much lower. There is no way of knowing how much, especially since there are these cases of requirements that most people will attend to. Some, like Cadnico’s, will not be resolved because, in fact, the person is not from a low-income family.
Who received the advance payment and, up front, finds that they are not entitled to the BPC, they have to return something?
No, you don’t have to return it. Unless fraud is configured. This is very rare. But we know that there are always some things, people who make up names, deceive documents. Only in situations like this, yes, come back. And it has all the civil and criminal consequences. In an emergency, you’ve had that kind of thing.
Is there a lot of fraud? People who retire and request PCBs, for example?
Rare retirement. Anyone trying to defraud generally knows the weaknesses. Until some time ago, we did not have access to information from states and municipalities. The scammers knew this and placed municipal officials to receive PCBs. Of the states, it was not so common. As the INSS did not have this information, the benefit ended up being granted. Because, in theory, the person had no income, there was no way to verify Income Tax, he had no data from his own Social Security system. Then I accepted. Today we have.
With the branches closed, the INSS adopted virtually remote assistance. Is productivity still the same?
Productivity has increased. First, because INSS computers are old, slower. The INSS network, in much of Brazil, is also slow. We are improving the quality of the network. But before that, it was slow. The server that works at home usually has a better internet and computer. Often, not always. But that only helps increase productivity. And there is the other side, that the boy is at home, he works at other times when he produces more.
Access in the application has also increased. How has INSS dealt with this? Were you ready
It increased. Some days he had difficulties, because Dataprev had a lot of work, also for emergency aid. But there were occasional situations. Initially, we had a more complex problem with 135 (phone call center number). We have three call centers and, due to covid, we had to reduce the number of people to guarantee a greater distance between professionals. We already had a certain disability. Before that, it was no longer a wonder. So much so that I had the idea to create a fourth floor, because it had a level of waiting beyond the ideal. The covid arrived, the movement increased about 20% and our capacity was reduced by half.
Was it the biggest service problem in the center?
It was. It gave him a big headache. A lot of work, a lot of rush to make a war plan and make it possible. It has improved. It is not yet ideal. But, from 15, it will be at the level it had before the crisis, with a slightly higher level of attendees. But, as the volume increases, it will be more or less at the same level as it had precovid.
Another INSS promise to cut red tape to grant benefits. What has been done about it?
This has been implemented. For example, one of the examples of bureaucracy is the person who stays in the agency with an original and a copy for the server to analyze and recognize the company. Now, in most cases, just send a copy through the app. You don’t even have to go to the copy agency. Even through covid, we allow you to send it through the app. If you can verify if the green document with registration details, that copy is enough. For example, death certificate. I can verify the record if that person actually died on that date.
