Morning Star.png Temer Sets Out Massive Privatisation Programme James Tweedie, The Morning Star, London, 15 September 2016 Brazil’s unelected president launched a wholesale privatisation drive of the country’s transport, oil fields and infrastructure on Tuesday. Michel Temer, who came to power in last month’s legislative coup against elected Workers Party (PT) President Dilma Rousseff, described the decimation of public ownership as an “extraordinary opening,” of Brazil’s infrastructure. The sell-off includes two seaports, four airports, five hydroelectric projects, six electricity distribution plants, three sanitation companies, five motorway and railway projects, three oil and gas operations and four mining concessions. The number of projects to be snatched out of public hands as part of Temer’s grand “Project Grow” was initially announced as 25, but later increased to 32. “For jobs” Of those at least 21 — including Porto Alegre, Salvador, Florianopolis and Fortaleza airports — will be privatised next year and the rest in 2018. Mr Temer told a meeting of his economic team: “The objective is to promote economic growth with the central goal of creating new jobs.” He claimed: “The state cannot do everything” as he announced the flogging-off of the national monopolies to privateers. But the plan did not inspire Brazil’s biggest stock market, with the Bovespa index closing down 3 per cent. Meanwhile the Chamber of Deputies — the lower house of Congress — was set to vote on legislation to allow the privitisation of one of Brazil’s most valuable resources — its offshore “pre-salt” layer oil reserves. Family silver Former PT President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government passed legislation which gave state-run oil firm Petrobras exclusive rights to the reserves which are valued at £2.3 trillion — twice Brazil’s GDP. This was designed to keep the fields under state management and restrict private investment. However Mr Temer’s new Foreign Minister Jose Serra pushed the privatisation law through the Senate in February, sparking fears that the reserves could be bought by foreign investors if it is approved by Congress. General strike Whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks revealed in 2010 that Mr Serra had promised transnational oil giants Exxon and Chevron the previous year he would reverse the PT legislation in return for funding his failed presidential campaign. Six major trade union federations will stage a general strike on September 22 against Mr Temer’s attacks on social programmes and workers’ rights. [email protected] From: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-337b-Temer-sets-out-massive-privatisati on-programme#.V9ocofl9600 __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 14125 (20160915) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/yclsa-eom-forum/001e01d20f32%246823be00%24386b3a00%24%40com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
