Miriam Belchior returns to government in an empowered Civil House – 02/21/2023 – Politics

After almost ten years away from the Esplanada, former minister Miriam Belchior returned to the center of the federal government as executive secretary of a Civil House empowered by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

As executive secretary of Minister Rui Costa (PT), Miriam was given the mission to monitor goals and demand priorities from Lula’s 37 ministries.

Among other points, Miriam has the challenge of relaunching the PAC (Growth Acceleration Program), an action that she already supervised in the Dilma Rousseff (PT) government, without repeating failures registered by the program in the past.

Showcase of the Lula and Dilma years, the PAC is defended by PT members as a driver of economic growth through investment in large infrastructure works.

But the program also experienced problems such as delays, lack of completion of works, price increases during execution, abandonment by builders and acceleration of public spending.

The reformulation of the new PAC, whose official name has not yet been defined, is under discussion with the Civil House team. The idea is that the relaunch takes place until the 100th day of the Lula 3 government.

In past PT administrations, Miriam was a secretary at SAM (Special Secretariat for Coordination and Monitoring) and a counselor at Petrobras.

As Minister of Planning (2011-2015), Miriam had as one of her tasks to run the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric project, in the Xingu region, which opposed the government and environmentalists and is still the target of criticism.

Miriam was also president of Caixa Econômica Federal (2015-2016). She stayed in the post for less than a year and a half, until Dilma’s impeachment. Taking office was marked by protests from civil servants against the possibility of opening the bank’s capital, as defended at the time by the then President of the Republic.

Members of the government describe Miriam as having a technical profile, with an overview of various Executive agendas, in addition to the experience of someone who has held a position in the first echelon and knows how the political game works.

In addition, the Executive Secretary of the Civil House has direct access to the President of the Republic. According to reports, it was Lula himself who convinced her to take office. She participated in the formulation of the government plan for the Lula-Alckmin ticket.

During the transition, she was quoted to assume the Ministry of Planning again. The folder, however, ended up being occupied by the emedebista Simone Tebet.

If she was not promoted to minister, Miriam was at the forefront of the internal dispute in the government over which portfolio would be with the PPI (Partnerships and Investments Program). The program was coveted by Tebet, but the action of historical PT members —especially Rui and Miriam— kept the structure under the umbrella of the Civil House.

During the election, Miriam spoke to the Sheet that the concessions program will continue, but it will be different.

“We are going to continue granting concessions in the areas of highways, railways, airports, but compounding this with public works. It is not the logic that only private investment will solve our problems”, he stated in June of last year.

Miriam also defended the creation of the Ministry of Management and Innovation of Public Services, which diluted some functions that belonged to Planning.

On the second day of government, she participated and gave a speech at the inauguration of Esther Dweck at the Ministry of Management, where she shared the stage with two women she is close to: both the new minister and former president Dilma.

In her speech, Miriam shouted “long live President Dilma” to a full auditorium, which accompanied her with applause; she praised Esther’s “creative work ability” and highlighted the folder’s creation—”topic, for me, very expensive”.

“It is the first time that I share an institutional space with President Dilma, she deserves the extremely warm reception. Long live President Dilma”, said the executive secretary.

The closeness between Dilma and Miriam was especially marked during the impeachment process. Miriam was one of the first defense witnesses to testify before the Special Committee on Impeachment in the Senate.

She was responsible for defending the supplementary credits identified as irregular by the PT’s opponents.

“What I can assure you, from my four-year experience as a minister, in which we issue more or less 70 supplementary decrees per year, is that the entire governance of this process is extremely robust, relying on technical and legal opinions, with teams of federal civil servants”, said Miriam at the time.

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X-RAY | Miriam Belchior, 65

With a degree in food engineering and a master’s degree in public administration, she was Minister of Planning and president of Caixa Econômica Federal during the Dilma Rousseff (PT) administration. In Lula’s (PT) first government, she served as special advisor to the president and deputy head of Evaluation and Monitoring at the Civil House. In the PT’s second term, she was responsible for monitoring the works of the PAC (Growth Acceleration Program). She has a long career in the PT, coming from social movements in the ABC region of São Paulo. She was married for ten years to Celso Daniel, former mayor of Santo André who was murdered in 2002. She is the current Executive Secretary of the Civil House.