The government’s next step is to renew Petrobras’ board; understand

After yet another troubled change in command of Petrobras, the government now has the challenge of renewing the company’s board of directors, if it wants to increase interference in its management. The process must face challenges for a series of restrictions on the nominees.

The list of names was presented at the beginning of the month, but there is still no date for the shareholders’ meeting that will elect the new directors. The current collegiate awaits the analysis of the candidates’ CVs to convene the meeting, which can only take place at least 30 days after the convening.

In an attempt to reduce resistance, the list of nominees is made up mostly of people who hold public positions, which has been generating criticism among workers and minority shareholders, who see possible conflicts of interest or restrictions provided for in the State-Owned Companies Law.

The government indicated 8 names, 6 of them linked to public administration. To preside over the board, the nominee is Serpro’s president, Gileno Gurjão Barreto, who was the number two of Petrobras’ president-elect, Caio Paes de Andrade, when he presided over the federal body.

Barreto should not face major questions. The focus is on three other nominees: Jhonatas Assunção, Ricardo Soriano and Iêda Cagni.

The first is number two by the Minister of the Civil House, Ciro Nogueira. The State-Owned Companies Law prohibits the appointment in these companies of a holder of a position “of a special nature or of superior management and advice in the public administration”.

Soriano and Cagni are servants of the PGFN (Prosecutor General of the National Treasury) — the former heads the agency, which is a party to tax proceedings against the state-owned company, which, for critics, can constitute a conflict of interest.

The fifth government nominee who holds public office is Edison Garcia, president of CEB (Companhia Energética de Brasília), a government company in the Federal District, which is governed by Bolsonaro’s ally Ibaneis Rocha. There are no signs of conflict in this case.

Paes de Andrade was also nominated and, although he was elected president of the company this Monday (27), he will have to go through a vote at the next shareholders’ meeting to definitively compose the board. He held a secretary in the Ministry of Economy.

The list also has two executives who are already on the board of the state-owned company, Marcio Weber, the current president, and Ruy Flacks Schneider. Both are considered less prone to conflict with the controlling shareholder.

The eight nominees by the government will compete with banker João José Abdalla Filho, known as Juca Abdalla, who nominated himself and lawyer Marcelo Gasparino for the collegiate. The two had been elected in April, but will have to re-enter the dispute with the call of a new assembly.

The council has 11 vacancies, but 3 are already filled: 2 by the minority representatives Francisco Petros and Marcelo Mesquita, and 1 by the workers’ representative, Rosângela Buzanelli.

The list presented by Bolsonaro is seen as an offensive to ensure greater alignment of the council with the federal government. It differs from the profile adopted since the Michel Temer government (MDB), which privileged executives in the financial and oil markets.

It is the first time since Dilma Rousseff (PT), for example, that an occupant of the Planalto Palace, from where Jhonatas Assunção dispatches, has been appointed to the Petrobras board of directors.

The government and allies came to propose changes in the State-owned Companies Law to try to avoid embarrassment and greater questioning in the change of command of the company, but the proposal faced resistance in the Ministry of Economy.

Petrobras itself has facilitated the process: faced with criticism of Paes de Andrade’s lack of experience, Petrobras’ human resources area defended that the rules established by the statute are flexible.

At the meeting of the internal committee that approved the executive’s curriculum, he said that the statute “allows the interpretation that, although it is desirable that experience be in the business or in a related area, it is not mandatory, the criterion being met with the proof of the ten years of leadership experience”.