Elena Landau, an ally of Simone Tebet, criticizes Lula for lack of privatizations

Economist Elena Landau, who was responsible for helping to prepare Minister Simone Tebet’s government plan when she ran in the presidential race for the MDB, in October last year, criticized the position of the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) of strengthening state-owned companies and avoid new privatizations. The professional was listed for the Ministry of Planning during the transition, but did not join the government.

In an article published this Friday (7th) in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, Elena says that Lula is taking a “retrogression” by revoking a device of the National Privatization Council (CND) that determined a periodic evaluation of state-owned companies. The mechanism served as the basis for recommending the inclusion of companies in the privatization program, and would have been revoked due to “ideological motivation”.

“With technological evolution, activities currently under state administration run the risk of extinction, like Correios, or of obsolescence in the face of the demands of a digital government, like Dataprev. Others without any reason to exist also gained survival, such as PPSA [Pré-Sal
Petróleo S.A.] and Telebras”, said the economist.

According to Elena, Lula made an “even worse” decision by resurrecting Ceitec, the National Center for Advanced Electronic Technology, which operates in the development of semiconductors and specific applications. The economist claims that the state company has not developed any quality product since it was created, in 2008, under the second administration of the PT, and that “certainly, it will not contribute to the national production of microprocessors”.

“In addition to economic reasons, it is good to remember that privatizations have brought social benefits, such as the universalization of telephony and electricity, a path to be followed in sanitation, if the government does not interfere”, he says.

Evaluation of state-owned companies is provided for in the Constitution

Elena Landau completes her article by recalling that the Federal Constitution determines that the presence of the State is justified only in cases of “imperative national security or “relevant public interest that justifies its creation”

The repeal of the device that determined a constant assessment of state-owned companies “may seem innocuous”, he says, since what the Constitution says is valid. However, Elena Landau says that “it’s symbolic that a government doesn’t give a damn about complying with a constitutional norm”.

“The correct thing would be to include all state-owned companies in the PND [Programa Nacional de Desestatização] to assess its adequacy to art.173. Only those that meet this requirement would remain under public control, in addition, of course, to those defined as a constitutional state monopoly. The government would not need to justify each privatization decision, as it is today, but rather explain the reason for keeping a state-owned company instead of selling it”, he added.

For her, the presence of the State in the economy “should be the exception, not the rule, as our heritage culture makes it seem”.

In addition to being an ally of Simone Tebet during last year’s presidential race, in which the then candidate came in third in the first round and went on to support Lula in the second, Elena has already been an advisor to the presidency of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development. (BNDES) and director of the area responsible for the PND during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB).