President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated, this Thursday (18), that a restructuring of Correios is being discussed, facing financial difficulties. The president ruled out the privatization of the company and said that proposals are being studied so that the state-owned company “is healed, fully standing and productive for the country”.
“As long as I am president, there will be no privatization,” said Lula.
“What we can do is build partnerships. I know that there are Italian companies wanting to come here to discuss with Correio, there are other Brazilian companies that want to discuss Correio”, he said in a press interview at Palácio do Planalto. “There may be a partnership, the company may be transformed into a mixed-capital company, but there will be no privatization”, reaffirmed Lula.
For the president, the problem is the “mismanagement” that was carried out at the Post Office. “We decided to put our hand on the wound and resolve […]. We will take the measures we have to take, change all the positions we have to change”, he added.
In September, the government changed command of the state-owned company. For the new president of Correios, Emmanoel Rondon, one of the factors that contributed to the negative accounts was the growing competition in e-commerce.
The Minister of Management and Innovation in Public Services, Esther Dweck, stated in a recent statement that the situation was worsened by the fact that previous governments had placed the state-owned company on a list of possible privatizationsinhibiting investments in restructuring.
Shortly after taking over, Rondon presented the measures that make up the first phase of the financial and operational restructuring plan to guarantee the sustainability and modernization of the state-owned company. Among them, the company is negotiating a loan of R$20 billion with banks.
The approval to obtain these loans and their receipt from the National Treasury is also being negotiated with the government. According to the Ministry of Finance, the resources made available must be below the R$ 6 billion initially considered by the state-owned company. Any financial assistance, however, will be conditional on the company’s restructuring plan.
For Lula, Brazil cannot have a public company making a loss, “no matter how important it is”. “A public company does not need to be the queen of profits, but it cannot be the queen of losses. It has to balance itself”, he said.
In the midst of the crisis at the Post Office, the federal government created a mechanism so that non-dependent federal state companies (with their own revenues) in difficulties can reorganize their accounts without being automatically classified as dependent on the National Treasury. Last week, a decree changed rules on the transition process between dependent and non-dependent state-owned companies.
Lula received journalists for breakfast at Palácio do Planalto, followed by a press conference. He was accompanied by Finance Ministers, Fernando Haddad; from the Civil House, Rui Costa; of Foreign Affairs, Mauro Vieira; and Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva.
