Former minister confirms Bolsonaro's sell-out policies: 'We were going to privatize Petrobras'

247 - Adolfo Sachsida, former Minister of Mines and Energy in Jair Bolsonaro's government (PL), stated that if the former president had won the election, Petrobras would have been privatized. "Although many people didn't believe this was possible, the privatization was being prepared by the government," Sachsida said in an interview with the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo. 

"The current government has a very different worldview from ours. When I was Minister of Mines and Energy, I always sought to provide a clear direction for each of the areas under my responsibility. In the oil and gas sectors, my direction was to generate competition," the former minister said. "We were going to bring a lot of competition to the oil and gas sectors in Brazil within a year and a half," he emphasized.

According to Sachsida, "there were several proposals on the table regarding how to privatize Petrobras, but we were studying a way to privatize it while generating competition in the oil and gas sectors. We wouldn't replace a state monopoly with a private monopoly. This would greatly facilitate and improve the lives of Brazilians. In the case of PPSA (Pré-Sal Petróleo S/A), the process was already more advanced. We even sent a bill to Congress to sell the receivables of thirty years from PPSA, which was a way to privatize the company."

"Based on my understanding with him until the end of the government, there was a green light to proceed with the privatization of Petrobras. In fact, it was carried out. It wasn't just talk. The first step was to ask the PPI (Investment Partnership Program) to begin studying the privatization, and the PPI council approved our request. My first official act was to request from Minister Paulo Guedes, to whom the PPI was subordinated, to include PPSA and Petrobras in the privatization process. So, I believe I would have the president's support to continue the process if he had won the election. However, everything has changed now. President Lula ordered the exclusion of Petrobras, PPSA, and six other companies, such as Correios (Brazilian Postal Service), EBC (Brazilian Communication Company), and Serpro (Federal Data Processing Service), from the PPI," Sachsida highlighted in another part of the interview.