The Brazilian government estimates it has achieved savings of more than 1 billion reais (US$ 180 million) with remote working since the start of the pandemic, and a new framework has been introduced this month with rules that include employee responsibility for expenses such as electricity.
According to the report released on Friday (25) by the Ministry of Economy, the figure considers 859 million (US$ 154 million) in fixed expenses relating to the maintenance of physical offices. The savings reported also take into account a reduction of 161 million reais (US$ 29 million) in benefits to workers between April and August 2020.
Part of the public sector workers has been operating remotely since the start of the pandemic. According to Cristiano Heckert, secretary at the Special Secretariat for Debureaucratization, Management and Digital Government at the Ministry of Economy, expenses have been monitored on a monthly basis since these public servants shifted to the home office set-up. A decrease in spending has been achieved in items such as expenses with transportation as well as electricity, water and sewage. "The resources saved in administrative expenses can be used to directly serve the population", the secretary noted.
The breakdown provided by the Ministry of Economy outlines savings with expenses such as travel, which reached 471.2 million reais (US$ 84.9 million). Savings with electricity have reached 255.5 million reais (US$ 46 million). The government has also reported it is spending 89.5 million reais (US$ 16 million) less with communication services, while savings with water and photocopying has reached 32.9 million reais (US$ 5.9 million) and 9.7 million reais (US$ 1.7 million) respectively.
According to an update published by the Brazilian government in July 2020, 95% of the teachers working at schools run by the federal government were operating remotely, while 49% of