President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva once again showed dissatisfaction with the current level of interest rates and said that no one can stand to stay every 45 days anymore seeing one part of the country defending the high interest rate and another criticizing the level. In the president’s view, it is necessary “to find ways for the Brazilian economy to grow beyond that normality that everyone talks about”. Lula recalled that during his presidency from 2003 to 2010, every meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) had someone to criticize the increase in interest rates, the reduction or to speak well.
“I say every day, there is no explanation for any human being on planet earth for the interest rate in Brazil to be at 13.75%. There is no explanation, so, as President of the Republic, I cannot keep discussing each Copom report. I can’t. They pay the price for what they are doing. History will judge each of us. The only thing I know is that the Brazilian economy has to grow. We need to create jobs. Employment is the only thing that guarantees peace of mind. If your father works, your mother works, if you work, everyone earns a little, the economy grows again. It is this country that I want to build and it is this country that we are going to build”, he said, after getting to know the submarine Humaitá, during a visit this Thursday (23) to the Itaguaí Naval Complex, in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, where submarines for the Navy’s Submarine Program (Prosub) are being built, considered strategic for national defense.
The president said that upon completing 100 days in office, a new development program for Brazil will be presented. “When we are going to announce what happened in the 100 days, we are going to present another development program for this country. We have to build roads, bridges, highways, take care of basic sanitation, take care of water treatment, health, education. There’s everything to do, because I’m going to be fighting with the others. I’ll do. I was elected to do I’m going to do it,” he stated.
For Lula, it is also necessary to put an end to the great divergences that have divided Brazil. According to the president, the country has spent the last four years in “a single curse word” and that is what it intends to change. “We need to turn this country around. So I’ll do it. It is my mission, almost a profession of faith, to prove that this country will once again become a country where people live with their heads held high, happy, playing. Corinthiano playing with flamenguista, flamenguista playing with vascaíno, palmeirense losing to Corinthians and no one finding it bad with anyone. This is what I wish for, and this is what will happen,” he said.
Lula said that he has no way of making any move to replace the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, from the position, because the approval of the name of the occupant of the institution’s presidency is up to the Senate. Lula recalled that in previous terms he spoke with Henrique Meirelles, who was the president of the Central Bank, but that now, if Campos Neto does not want to, he does not even need to talk to him.
“If that citizen wants to, he doesn’t even need to talk to me. He just has to comply with the law that established the autonomy of the Central Bank. He needs to take care of monetary policy, but he also needs to take care of employment, inflation and people’s income. That is what is in the law, just read the law”, he said, adding that, in his view, Campos Neto is not fulfilling his mission.
“Everybody knows he’s not doing [cuidar da política monetária, do emprego e da inflação]. If he was doing it, I wasn’t complaining. Am I silly to complain about a good thing?
The president was accompanied on the visit by the French ambassador to Brazil, Brigitte Collet; by the Ministers of Science, Technology and Innovation, Luciana Santos, and of Tourism, Daniela Carneiro; by the Chief Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, Márcio Macedo; by the Chief Minister of the Institutional Security Office of the Presidency of the Republic, General Gonçalves Dias; by the president of the Committee on Foreign Relations and National Defense of the Senate, Senator Renan Calheiros; by the Secretary General of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Maria Laura da Rocha; and the CEOs of the main companies involved in Prosub.
