Meeting with Simone Tebet, Brazilian Minister of Planning and Budget, with IBGE officers - Picture: Edu Andrade/Ascom-MF

Simone Tebet, Minister of Planning and Budget, hosted the IBGE´s Board of Directors, state superintendents and managers yesterday (6) in Brasília. In the meeting, the Minister supported the IBGE and summoned those who did not participate to answer the Census. Read the complete story below or on the link.

The defense of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and of the importance of the 2022 Population Census to get to know Brazil and anchor public policies was the subject of the meeting carried out in the afternoon of Monday (February 6) in the Ministry of Planning and Budget. Minister Simone Tebet and all her secretaries hosted the current IBGE´s Board of Directors and the 27 regional superintendents, an unprecedented meeting in the recent history of Brazil. “We need to understand what is happening. The IBGE is a Brazilian asset. It is the serious work of its researchers that allows us to know Brazil, showing us who we are, how many we are, how we live. The Census, for example, works as a picture of Brazil,” stated the Minister. She added: “We cannot let an adverse situation, bequeathed from the previous administration, which denied science and abandoned public policies based on evidences, hit the IBGE credibility.”

The Census works as a picture of Brazil,” Simone Tebet

Tebet stated that “we can never forget that the IBGE is one of the symbols representing knowledge, respect and reverence of the population.” According to her, the IBGE surveys, the Population Census among them, allow researchers from other institutes, from the academia and from other public offices to “create specialized studies towards the Brazil we want to be.”

The minister, wearing the blue vest used by the IBGE enumerators, invited Brazilians who did not answer the census yet to do it in February, a period in which the researchers are in the streets of every city where the data collection work is not complete.  Tebet reminded that it is important that people understand that, not responding to the IBGE, the municipal public policies of health, education and public works, among others, get jeopardized, because the access by the municipalities to the Municipal Revenue Sharing Fund (FPM) varies according to the population size.

Data released by the IBGE on February 2 showed that, on the Brazilian average, 2.43% of the persons/households did not answer the Census, but in some some states, like São Paulo, this percentage reaches 4.49%. Tebet reminded that every Census is revised after the data collection since 1960, and this one will not be different. “Before the revision, the last Census (2010) revealed that we were 185.7 million.

The revision added 5 million and it reached 190.7 million Brazilians,” said her.

When speaking in the meeting, the IBGE superintendents from different states expressed their confidence concerning the quality of the “picture” that the Census will bring. “You, minister, and every Brazilian, should be sure that the Census will bring the truth about Brazil,” said the IBGE Superintendent in Maranhão, Marcelo Virginio de Melo. Adriane Almeida do Sacramento, superintendent in Sergipe, reminded that every Brazilian was treated with the same respect and integrity by the IBGE staff, either in fancy condominiums or in suburban houses.

“This was the fourth Census I did and it has the best quality,” said Maria Antônia Esteves da Silva, superintendent in Minas Gerais, at IBGE for 47 years. And this quality doesn´t mean any downgrade of the previous ones, but it only reflects the use of advanced information technology tools and of crossing the statistical and geospatial databases (like, for instance, use the databases of enterprises of electricity distribution to detect whether there are residents in a given house) to process information faster, explained Carlos Codovio, the IBGE´s Director of Information Technology.

Roberto Kern Gomes, the superintendent in Santa Catarina, noted that the Census delayed not “to jeopardize quality, but rather to guarantee it.” Cimar Azeredo, the IBGE´s Director of Surveys and Acting President, reinforced the dedication of the technical staff of the institution to guarantee the accomplishment of the Population Census.

History of negligence

Originally scheduled for 2020, the Census was initially postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021, the 2021 Budget Bill (PLOA 2021) estimated nearly R$2 billion for the Census. During the budget proceeding, however, the National Congress approved a value of R$71 million, yet sanctioned with a veto of R$19 million, thus remaining R$53 million in the Budget Act. Along 2021, R$116 million were supplemented to enable the preparation of the field work. Therefore, the 2020 Census, postponed to 2021, was once again postponed, then to 2022.

The mandatory accomplishment of the Census in 2021 was submitted to the Federal Supreme Court (STF), which decided to carry it out in 2022, using as reference the technical parameters advocated by the IBGE, provided that the Union assures the budget for that.

When the previous administration sent the PLOA 2022 to the Congress, it stipulated R$2 billion for the Census. In the same day, the IBGE formally pronounced the required value, which was R$2.3 billion. Therefore, the Executive Power sent a letter to the National Congress providing the source to supplement R$300 million pointed out by the IBGE. The budget was sanctioned with the total value the IBGE considered necessary.

Nearly 80% of that budget would be destined to temporarily hire professionals: 211 thousand people, being 183,021 enumerators, 18,420 supervisors and 10 thousand census agents. Of the budget of R$2.3 billion, nearly R$1.76 billion were settled and nearly R$521 million were enrolled in non-processed payables. The budget for 2023 is R$233 million. That adds up to an approximate expenditure by the Federal Administration with the 2022 Census of R$2.7 billion, being R$169 million in 2021, R$2.3 billion in 2022 and R$233 million in 2023.

More information

For details about the 2022 Census, we invite everyone to read the complete note released by the IBGE Board of Directors on this link.

For details about the Normative Decision of the Brazilian Court of Audit (TCU) on the use of IBGE information to calculate the quotas of the Municipal Revenue Sharing Fund (FPM) for 2023, we invite everyone to read the Court´s decision here.