(Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s influential lower house Speaker Rodrigo Maia said he’s no longer on speaking terms with the nation’s economy chief just as the government pushes for key austerity reforms in congress.
“I haven’t been talking with Minister Paulo Guedes; he has barred his economic team from talking to me,” Maia told Globonews TV in an interview late on Thursday. The speaker, who was instrumental in the approval of a crucial pension overhaul last year, said he had invited senior members of the economic team for a work lunch on Wednesday but Guedes prevented them from attending.
“The conversation was interrupted,” Maia said, adding that from now on all contacts with the economy ministry will be made through the government’s office of congress liaison. He also said reforms will continue.
The economy ministry declined to comment.
Maia’s remarks came only hours after the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro submitted to congress a proposal to rein in the country’s high civil servant costs. The bill, which intends to give government agencies more flexibility when hiring workers, was seen as a nod to Guedes’ austerity agenda. But the economy minister didn’t attend the ceremony in which the proposal was symbolically launched.
Read More: Bolsonaro Submits Proposal to Cut Brazil Civil Servant Costs
A tax reform, a bill to extinguish hundreds of state funds and plans to open the gas sector to private investment are also among the proposals for which the administration needs congressional support. While both Maia and Guedes are seen as pro-markets, they have often publicly clashed over the timing and the scope of the reforms agenda.
Guedes is facing increasing pressure from congress and other ministers to continue spending big next year in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Brazil is one the world’s hardest hit countries by the virus, with more than 4 million cases and nearly 125,000 deaths. The minister has signaled he will stay in the job as long as Bolsonaro keeps the country on track to fiscal austerity.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
Advertisement