A month after leaving office to run for the government of São Paulo, the Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcísio de Freitas, became the target of criticism and attacks from allies of João Doria (PSDB), opponents of Jair Bolsonaro (PL). ) and even business groups opposed by the minister’s decisions.
A poster boy for Bolsonaro for conducting a concession program considered successful by the government, Tarcísio did not want to take any chances in São Paulo.
The minister considered having more chances with a candidacy for the Senate, but Bolsonaro asked Tarcísio to change his mind so that he himself had a guaranteed platform in São Paulo – the birthplace of Governor João Doria.
The results of the latest polls, however, boosted the government’s plans with Tarcísio.
In December, Datafolha appointed the minister with 9% of voting intentions. Palácio do Planalto evaluated that Tarcísio had potential to advance in the second round.
Since then, Tarcísio has appeared at private events and lectures with a speech more in line with Bolsonaro, praising the administration of which he is a part and directing criticism, and even profanity, against Lula and Dilma.
At a private event for investors in São Paulo, about a month ago, Tarcísio said that he leaves Esplanada until April to run for office, and, without naming names, he attacked Doria and former presidents Lula and Dilma Rousseff, both from the PT.
“Corrupt has to go to hell, to the lightning that breaks him, to the whore that gave birth”, he said. “That’s why I don’t want to see more corrupt in the Presidency of the Republic. I’m worried about the nostalgia that some people have for that time.”
An engineer graduated from the Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras (Aman), he made a career as a civil servant at the Chamber of Deputies until he was transferred to the CGU (General Controllership of the Union), where he became the general coordinator of audit in the transport area.
Chosen by Dilma, Tarcísio was executive director of the Dnit (National Department of Transport Infrastructure) shortly after the cleaning against corruption schemes in the body by the former president.
As number 2 of the body, he took the first more concrete steps of his journey in infrastructure until reaching the PPI (Investment Partnership Program), the first measure of former president Michel Temer, in 2016.
There, he began to monitor all infrastructure concession projects in the PPI, especially highways. The minister recently stated that he wanted to be a truck driver because of his passion for hitchhiking. The category is one of the main allies of the government and Tarcísio still participates in groups of truck drivers.
He became a minister when he had the chance to enter Bolsonaro’s cabinet while still in the transitional government, at the headquarters of the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, in Brasília, to defend the maintenance of the PPI.
At that time, the program had auctioned only 22 projects for highways, railways, ports and airports, guaranteeing approximately R$ 14.5 billion in investments.
Between 2019 and 2021, 81 logistics infrastructure projects were granted to the private sector with investments of R$76.2 billion.
Tarcísio will leave office with the forecast of granting 25 airports, 15 highways, 4 railways and 30 ports and terminals, which would unlock R$ 109.5 billion in investments.
This performance guaranteed good news for Bolsonaro who, in the last three years, has been facing declines in his popularity due to political defeats resulting from ill-fated projects, the damage caused by the pandemic and, more recently, the deterioration of the fundamentals of the economy (inflation and interest, especially) with the war in Ukraine — which sent food and oil prices soaring.
The minister uses the results of his administration and, at events and lectures, speaks with the tone of a fearless doer who, according to him, is not afraid to “roll up his sleeves” and overcome any difficulty.
His growth in polls has led opponents to articulate on social media to attack him and even relativize the success of his concession plan – the campaign’s flagship.
Even in allied parties, such as the Republicans, PP, of Ciro Nogueira, and the PL —the party to which Tarcísio joined — there are criticisms.
Businessmen linked to these politicians have circulated in the last two weeks a post on social networks showing that the minister is cited by the PF in investigations of corruption in the Dnit, a way of eroding the minister’s “good guy” image. Tarcísio was never a target of the PF.
Allies of Doria, who supports Rodrigo Garcia (PSDB) for the government of São Paulo, launched an attack against the NovaDutra concession, which CCR won at auction at the end of last year, and which will bring BRL 14.8 billion in investments. .
In a campaign tone, the contract had a signing ceremony and had President Bolsonaro.
The federal government released an institutional video of the project, which has been questioned in São Paulo.
Doria’s allies criticize the fact that the project only foresees the duplication of the Rio-Santos highway, a counterpart of investment, and the fact that NovaDutra’s tolls in the stretches of São Paulo have had much lower discounts (3%) than the from Rio de Janeiro (21%).
Infrastructure investment funds and business groups that spoke anonymously with the sheet assess that the modeling of many projects, mainly railways and highways, favored Rumo and CCR.
These criticisms also arise in conversations with port terminals that saw their renovation plans founder after Tarcísio’s refusals, who intends to modernize the access network to the port of Santos (SP), before privatizing it.
According to them, in the case of Rumo, the concessions acquired in railways especially consolidate its position as a logistics group, integrating highways and railways for the flow of products.
CCR consolidates its position in the offer of integrated transport solutions — airports, highways, and urban mobility.
The criticism is that the projects would have been priced for less, which explains very high premiums that could only be paid by well-capitalized groups.
The Secretary of Development, Planning and Partnerships of the Ministry of Infrastructure denies any type of direction.
THE sheet it states that all the projects were designed based on the market’s appetite and that the pricing (concession value) was calculated within adequate parameters and approved by the TCU (Court of Accounts of the Union).
“In fact, groups like Rumo and CCR have strengthened in the last auctions, but that’s because of their strategy,” said Marcassa. “The projects were prepared including the entry of new foreign groups, but they gave up due to country risk.”
A partner at Inter B, the International Business consultancy, economist Cláudio Frischtak has advised several national and foreign groups on infrastructure concessions.
For him, Tarcísio chose projects that would give more exposure and the problem was not one of modeling, but of idealizing the concession.
“The BR-163, for example, is an asset whose design was poorly designed,” said Frischtak. “It was made not to give competition.”
According to him, the government followed the concession model of the administration of former president Michel Temer and selected the “sexiest” projects to carry out.
“See that few were empty. The only case of failure was the BR-381 [conhecida como Rodovia da Morte, entre MG e ES]that the ministry is trying for the second time to make the project attractive”, says Frischtak.
The Ministry informs that “has been learning from the modeling of the projects” and that the BR-381 is a challenge, due to the geography (mountain) and investment risks linked to the work at a time of high input costs. The project “returned to the drawing board” and should be auctioned again later this year.
Through its advisory, the ministry says that Tarcísio “does not appear as a target in any of the investigations”. He says that, as a manager, he signed contracts following “legal procedures and requirements”, supported by technical and legal opinions from the agency and that “they could not foresee the occurrence of any irregularities”.
The folder also says that, in the case of NovaDutra, the criticisms are unfounded because the toll rates vary according to the coverage distance of each toll plaza. “The greater the distance from one square to another, the greater the toll price between them.”
“It should also be clarified that the investments defined in the project come from studies of demand and road capacity, without distinction between states, considering only technical criteria for the decision”, says the ministry.
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