Itaipu: Lula appoints ministers to the council – 06/04/2023 – Market

The Itaipu council in the third term of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be composed mostly of ministers. The nominations were published this Thursday (6) in the DOU (Official Gazette).

People following the nominations claim that engineer André Pepitone can be kept as financial director of the binational. He reached the post in the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL), and the confirmation, they point out, would be a PT defeat for the PSD.

Five of the seven councilors are ministers. Alexandre Silveira (Mines and Energy), Esther Dweck (Management and Innovation), Fernando Haddad (Finance) and Rui Costa (Casa Civil) were appointed. As usual, Minister Mauro Vieira occupies one of the vacancies reserved for the MRE (Ministry of Foreign Affairs).

A counselor receives R$ 37,000, plus benefits.

The expectation was that Alexandre Padilha would also be an adviser, but the other seat, which is usually reserved for an MRE nominee, went to Michele Caputo Neto. Former state secretary of Health and former state deputy, he is sponsored by federal deputy Luciano Ducci (PSB-PR).

This choice represents a victory for the group led by Gilberto Kassab, currently Secretary of Institutional Relations for the government of São Paulo.

The party’s nominations in Itaipu are negotiated by Minister Silveira, a licensed senator of the acronym, with the support of the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco.

The hypothesis of Pepitone remaining as financial director, a strategic post for managing the plant’s cash, bothers PT members who follow the nominations in the electricity sector. Itaipu is an area of ​​influence of the party president, Gleisi Hoffmann. She was able to appoint, for example, Carlos Carboni, her advisor, as director of Coordination.

Pepitone has a long technical background in the energy sector. He is a career civil servant at Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency), where he worked in the regulation area and became general director. However, he was placed on the Financial Board of Itaipu on the recommendation of Bolsonaristas, with the support of former Minister of Mines and Energy Bento Albuquerque.

Today, among PT supporters, he is seen as a representative of the former president.

The competition for the Financial Directorate has been fierce. The Senate tried to placate Astrogildo Quental, who made a career at the still state-owned Eletrobras, especially at Eletronorte. There was also a mobilization in favor of former federal deputy Pedro Guerra (PSD-PR), son of former minister and former deputy from Paraná Alceni Guerra, who supported Lula in the elections.

This Thursday’s DOU also officialized the dismissal of the former council.

The ex-ministers Adolfo Sachsida and Bento Albuquerque (Mines and Energy), the ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carlos França, the ex-minister of the Secretary of Government of the Presidency Célio Faria Júnior, the ambassador Fernando Magalhães, the ex-deputy José Carlos Aleluila and ex-governor of Paraná Cida Borghetti.