Financing abroad stops waiting for TCU – 07/23/2023 – Panel SA

The Planalto Palace awaits the vote of TCU (Union Court of Auditors) Minister Augusto Sherman for what he considers one of the most difficult pineapples to peel in this government: the responsibility of 40 former civil servants in the engineering and services export program of the BNDES (National Bank for Economic and Social Development).

The TCU processes under the report of the minister investigate alleged violations committed by members of Cofig (Committee for Financing and Guarantee of Exports), Camex (Chamber of Foreign Trade), managers and superintendents of the BNDES, who, during the first terms of Lula and Dilma Rousseff, participated in structuring the export operations of contractors such as Odebrecht, Camargo Corrêa and Andrade Gutierrez.

Financing for works in countries such as Angola, Mozambique, Cuba and Venezuela, among others, is widely criticized and exploited by PT opponents in campaigns.

Today, only Venezuela owes US$ 1 billion to Brazil, an invoice that, as Panel SA reported, was collected from Nicolas Maduro when he was in Brazil, on a visit to President Lula. There are other defaulting countries.

The TCU investigates whether there were irregularities in the structure of the guarantees.

Contracts involving projects in Venezuela and Cuba, currently in default, provided for the delivery of barrels of oil (Venezuela), tobacco and sugar (Cuba) as collateral for the loans. It was a way of blocking the main export source of these countries’ main products to force payment. However, according to the TCU auditors, these were credits that were difficult to enforce.

The government awaits the development of this judgment. Today, one of the obstacles to the resumption of the services export program is precisely the judgment on the responsibility of the members of the committees linked to the ministries of Finance and Development, Industry and Commerce.

While it does not occur, there is a kind of “blackout of the pens” in the government, whose members fear taking decisions that could give rise to penalties. The ministers’ position on past cases will guide future measures.

The government expects this decision to carry out changes in the program.

Recently, the then executive secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Gabriel Galípolo, stated that the BNDES would only finance exports of services to Argentina, which is in crisis, with additional guarantees, as happened with Venezuela, Cuba and Mozambique in the past.

Companies are waiting for a different way out. They consider that these loans have sovereign guarantees (from the country) and, therefore, need more efficient debt execution tools. Tobacco, sugar and oil, the so-called additional guarantees, are not seen as possibilities. It would be more of the same, according to the national exporters.

With Diego Felix

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