Brazil taps Guedes to lead massive privatisation drive
The government hopes to raise a total $35bn this year from the sale of state assets.
Brazil put Economy Minister Paulo Guedes in charge of its drive to find investors to buy state assets, a presidential decree said on Friday. The move comes a day after the programme’s deputy head was fired due to a controversy over the improper use of an Air Force jet.
The move extends the broad authority Guedes already has over economic policy, and he has said the government needs to speed up privatisation of all state companies to help reduce its budget deficit and spur growth.
President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday that he would remove the Investment Partnerships Program (PPI) from his embattled chief of staff Onyx Lorenzoni following a public uproar over the undue use of an Air Force executive jet by his deputy.
Since Bolsonaro took office a year ago vowing to reduce the size of the state’s role in the economy, the PPI programme has run 36 auctions of public-sector contracts that will eventually bring in more than $100bn in revenue for the National Treasury, PPI’s secretary Martha Seillier told investors in India last week.
The government hopes to raise a total 150 billion reals ($35bn) this year from privatisations of companies and concessions to build and operate roads, railways, ports and airports, in a drive to modernise the country’s deficient infrastructure.