President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).| Photo: Sedat Suna/EFE.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) returned to criticize this Thursday (2) the actions of the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto. The representative stated that Campos Neto owes “an explanation to the Brazilian people” for keeping the Selic, the basic interest rate, at 13.75% per year. Lula said that Brazil “cannot be hostage to a single man”.

“The GDP for the last quarter came out, it’s negative, so the Brazilian economy didn’t grow last year. Despite the fanfare of the [Paulo] Guedes did not grow. So, you have an economy that is not growing, you have unemployment that has informal employment with workers earning very poorly because the wage bill has dropped a lot, you have no credit, credit is scarce and soon you will have a credit crisis. And I just wanted an explanation why the interest is at 13.75%”, said the Chief Executive in an interview with BandNews FM.

Lula said that as President of the Republic he must be accountable to the population, to the National Congress, to the Federal Audit Court (TCU). “Now, why should this citizen [Campos Neto], who was not elected for anything, thinks he has the power to decide things and still ‘I’m going to think about how I can help Brazil’? No, you don’t have to think about how to help Brazil, you just have to think about how to reduce the interest rate so that this country has credit again, for the economy to work again, that’s what you have to do”, Lula pointed out.

“And this is not my bravado because I have no interest in fighting with the president of the Central Bank. The only thing I think is the following: this country cannot be hostage to a single man”, he added.