Mantega admits error in the Dilma government and says he will not be Lula’s minister

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Former finance minister Guido Mantega ruled out today the possibility of participating in a possible government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). He also admitted to having made mistakes in the conduct of economic policy, citing the case of intervention in the electricity sector to reduce the electricity bill, in 2012, during the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government. The statements were given in an interview with Bloomberg.

“I don’t intend to go back. The economy has cycles; you keep the good part, but if the economy doesn’t work, it’s the minister’s fault. I stayed in the government for 12 years in a row. -finance Minister.

Mantega was Minister of Planning in the first Lula government and took over the Ministry of Finance in 2006, at the end of his term. He held the position until January 2015, leaving a few months before the impeachment of former President Dilma.

The former minister denied that he intends to draw up an economic program exclusively for the PT. “Lula will have many political alliances, you cannot govern alone,” he said. “After the group of parties is confirmed, you will start to discuss a program that has to be accepted by everyone, it cannot be a program imposed by the PT”.

To Bloomberg, Mantega acknowledged some mistakes in Dilma’s economic policy, during the period in which he commanded the economic team. He cited the government’s intervention in the energy sector, in 2012, to lower the electricity bill. After the intervention, there was a tariff, which made the electricity bill skyrocket.

“That [corte na conta de luz] did not work. Eletrobras shares went down, and you had a lot of investors in Eletrobras. In fact, I think we made a mistake there.”

For the former minister, Brazil will need a major infrastructure investment plan for 2023, similar to the one proposed by Joe Biden’s administration in the United States, to get the economy out of the crisis in the midst of an adverse international scenario.

He says that the increase in interest rates by the Fed (the US central bank), added to the slowdown in China’s growth, will make Brazil’s recovery more difficult in the coming years. The combination, says Mantega, is “potentially deadly for the economy.”

Source: Folha

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