The federal government wants to find a formula to decide more quickly and efficiently the situation of the RIOgaleão-Tom Jobim International Airport, on Ilha do Governador, north of Rio, which had its license returned by the concessionaire RIOgaleão, among other reasons for the losses caused by the pandemic.
According to the Minister of Ports and Airports, Márcio França, the company renounced the concession and now one of the alternatives is to analyze the possibility of undoing this process. “As there was an attitude of waiver of the concession, we are going to study to see how we can get this waiver to be waived”, he said, adding that RIOgaleão is interested in continuing to manage the terminal.
The minister recalled that a similar solution was approved at the fourthlast Friday (18) by the Federal Court of Auditors for Aluízio Alves Airport, in São Gonçalo do Amarante, in Greater Natal, in Rio Grande do Norte. “We want to find this formula. This week, for the first time, the Federal Court of Accounts judged a similar case there in Amarante in Rio Grande do Norte, so it opened up the possibility of us forwarding it in some way, but the important thing is that we have the guarantee that the service is being rendered correctly and we need to get back to to have at Galeão a large handling equipment. It’s not just an airport. It is Brazil’s gateway and it has to be treated that way and that’s what President Lula asked him to do”, he revealed.
Galeão Airport receives mobilization for resumption – Roberto Castro / Mtur
France participated in this Saturday (21), of a meeting at Tom Jobim Terminal 1 to discuss the future of this and Santos Dumont airport, located in the central region of Rio. The Minister of Tourism, Daniela Carneiro; the president of Embratur, Marcelo Freixo; the mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes; and the chief secretaries of the Civil House, Nicola Miccione, and of the state of Transport of Rio, Washington Reis.
In the minister’s view, one of the measures that can be taken more quickly to increase the movement of passengers on the Tom Jobim is to place more regular internal flights in the terminal to supply the flights that go abroad. “It is possible to do. It is a government competency and we are going to try to do it as quickly as possible, ”he said.
Other options
According to the minister, in order to proceed with the “rebidding” it is necessary to make several calculations, including how much compensation the concessionaire would be entitled to for the investments already made in the terminal, “In fact, it has to return the investment it made or part of the investment. All this is not done by one person, it goes through the Court of Auditors. All operations that take a long time are of no interest to us. We want to do something faster. The quickest thing would be to find a mechanism for who is remaining, if he finds a formula to equate it”, he observed.
França did not rule out the possibility of the government taking control of Tom Jobim, if the alternatives for the permanence of RIOgaleão are exhausted and another concession does not occur. “The government owns 49% of the shares and naturally in any emergency it has Infraero, a competent company that has 5,000 public servants. We already manage several airports, but what we really want is for the company to feel safe to make new investments and be able to to have other investments in Brazil, not only her but all the others”, he indicated.
Carnival
The minister said that he and Daniela Carneiro were assured by the mayor of Rio, representatives of the state government and the concessionaire itself that the airport will operate “at its fullest” to serve the public during Carnival.
Port of Santos
Regarding the privatization of the Port of Santos, as intended by the governor of São Paulo, Tarcisio de Freitas, the minister stated that unlike the previous government, the current one is always open to hearing everyone, including opposing opinions, but stressed that this decision was taken in the election. “When the population voted in a majority for President Lula’s position, they already knew that we are not going to sell public authorities. This is a format that we do not agree with. Selling public authority is like selling the Federal Police or the Military Police of a state. These authorities will not be sold, they belong to the Brazilian people. Now, you can concession or privatize, like and speak, services or public spaces, as we have already done in various equipment, ”he said.
