Lula says he doesn’t need to ‘ask for a license to govern’ – 02/08/2023 – Market

In the midst of a dispute with the Central Bank over the interest rate, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) said this Wednesday (8) that he does not “have to ask for a license to govern” and that his objective is to improve the population’s life.

“I trust that the economy will grow again. We don’t have to ask for a license to govern, we were elected to govern. We don’t have to try to please anyone, we have to please the Brazilian people, who believed in a program that brought us here and it is this program that we are going to fulfill”, he said in a meeting at the Planalto Palace with the allied base.

The representative said that the Executive is working to resume stalled works and that it intends to make weekly trips to inaugurate public facilities.

“We can help to ensure that the Brazilian economy is not the disaster predicted by the IMF in their last assessment. We have a very large internal market and we have some things that developed countries have already done and we have to do, which is to take care of the cities”, he said. .

In recent days, Lula has been harshly criticizing the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto. He said this week that the country’s current basic interest rate, the Selic, is a disgrace.

“There is no justification for the interest rate to be at 13.50% [ela está na verdade em 13,75%]. Just look at the letter from the Copom for us to know that this interest rate increase is shameful,” said Lula.

He has also classified the autonomy of the Central Bank as “nonsense”. “The problem is not an independent bank, it is not a bank linked to the government. The problem is that this country has a culture of living with high interest rates,” stated Lula.

“When the Central Bank depended on me, everyone complained. The only day Fiesp [federação da indústria paulista] talked about was when interest rates increased. It was the only day […]. Now, they don’t speak,” he said on Monday (6).