Haddad chooses Treasury, Revenue and Reform secretaries

The future finance minister, Fernando Haddad, announced, this Thursday (22), three more secretaries in his portfolio. Two of them already worked with the PT candidate when he was mayor of São Paulo (2013-2016).

In charge of the National Treasury will be Robinson Barreirinhas; at the Federal Revenue, Rogerio Ceron; and at the Secretariat for Economic Reforms, Marcos Barbosa Pinto, as anticipated by the column Panel, from Sheet🇧🇷

Barreirinhas is a lawyer and was Secretary of Legal Affairs for the city of São Paulo. He will be responsible for controlling the Union’s cash.

Next to the vice-president-elect, Geraldo Alckmin, the current secretary of Finance of São Paulo, Felipe Salto, was quoted for the position, but lost strength in the face of Haddad’s idea of ​​having secretaries with whom he had already worked.

Now, it is possible that Salto will go to the Ministry of Development, Industry and Commerce, which will be headed by Alckmin.

Ceron is a career auditor and recently resigned from the presidency of SP Parcerias, the concessions and PPPs (public-private partnerships) body of the São Paulo government.

He was Secretary of Finance for the city of São Paulo, succeeding Marcos Cruz, another name to join the Finance team.

He will play a fundamental role in discussions on tax reform — one of Lula’s campaign promises that Haddad will carry out.

Its mission will be to lighten the tax burden for those who earn less and tighten the tax burden on the richest. Lula promised exemption for those earning up to R$5,000 a month.

At the head of the newly created Secretariat for Economic Reforms will be Marcos Barbosa Pinto, who was a partner of the former president of the Central Bank, Armínio Fraga, at Gávea Investimentos.

Haddad and Barbosa Pinto worked together at the Ministry of Planning in Lula’s first term.

In 2019, he was pivotal in the dismissal of Joaquim Levy from the presidency of the BNDES, after receiving an appointment to occupy a board of directors at the bank – which irritated Bolsonaro due to his connection with the PT. Both ended up leaving the government.

At the time, Haddad posted praise for the executive on his social networks. “He advised me on the formation of 2 bills: Prouni and PPP. His technical contribution was invaluable for the success of these initiatives. Bozo would not have been able to live with so much talent”.

Haddad did not announce the Secretary for Economic Policy (SPE). Guilherme Mello is the strongest candidate. He was the economist responsible for Lula’s government plan during the campaign.

This team will be coordinated by the former president of Banco Fator, Gabriel Galípolo, who was announced as executive secretary last week.

In addition to his right-hand man in the ministry, Haddad also chose Bernard Appy for the special secretariat for tax reform and Anelize Lenzi Ruas for the Attorney General of the National Treasury.

These secretariats are the ministry’s flagship in defining and conducting economic policy and, in the assessment of market analysts, the choice of names reflects Haddad’s willingness to seek, in his experience at the head of the São Paulo City Hall, management models for the ministry .

Haddad left City Hall under criticism from João Doria, who accused him of having spent too much and left the cashier without resources. The petista, however, defended himself by saying that he was responsible for the largest volume of investments in the city in three decades and for having achieved the investment grade given by the agency Fitch Ratings.

The future minister has already said that he will give priority to reforms, especially tax reforms, and that he will work on a proposal for a new fiscal anchor, a spending control mechanism to prevent the unbridled growth of public debt as a proportion of GDP.

The lack of definition caused turbulence in the market and investors are still waiting for this definition to decide whether to leave their funds invested in the country. For them, the fiscal framework will set the course for economic policy: whether the Lula 3 government will increase spending too much without controlling the indebtedness.