Lula says he wants to recover the shipping industry and criticizes the sale of Petrobras assets | Policy

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) criticized the privatizations of group companies Petrobras made by the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and attempts to dismantle the company’s production system.

Still according to Lula, the federal government is also making an effort to try recover the company and the Brazilian naval industry.

The president also stated that when he took over the federal government for the first time, in 2003, he established the goal that 70% of Brazilian ships and components would be nationally produced.

Noise at Petrobras drives away major investor

• In oil exploration activities, oil companies such as Petrobras require the work of many vessels, such as exploratory platforms, oil tankers to transport the product, as well as production support ships.

According to Lula, the rental of foreign ships harms the creation of jobs and the performance of small and medium-sized industries in Brazil, which justifies boosting the national economy to change this scenario.

Lula made the statement this Tuesday (2) during a ceremony announcing the start of dredging works on the São Lourenço Channel, in Niterói (RJ).

“They didn’t have the courage to privatize Petrobras, because they would have to go through Congress, so they started selling assets, like they sold the gas pipeline, BR [Distribuidora] and a gas company that we had, because the objective was to dismantle Petrobras’ production system”, said the president.

Lula recalled that, as a result of investments in technology by Petrobras, the company discovered the pre-salt in 2007, a large oil reserve in deep waters in Brazil’s territorial sea.

“From the pre-salt, we began to understand that we could make Petrobras the future of this country of our youth”, stated the president.

The internal dispute over control of the company, revealed in the crisis caused by the distribution of extraordinary dividends, which was canceled by decision of members of the State-owned company’s Board of Directors linked to the government, caused Petrobras’ shares to plummet.

According to the blog by journalist Valdo Cruzthe government’s move angered investors, caused losses to the National Treasury’s coffers, and could further harm other processes at the Federal Revenue.

The board’s proposal, led by Jean Paul Prates, was to distribute half of the extraordinary dividends, around R$3.5 billion, among shareholders. But the councilors representing the government decided to vote against it and had the support of the employee representative.

The president of the state-owned company abstained and the four councilors representing minority shareholders voted in favor of the board’s proposal, which ended up being rejected anyway. The council is made up of 11 members.

According to presidential advisors interviewed by the blog, The idea of ​​blocking the distribution of dividends was intended to allocate these resources to investments.