By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – As Brazil’s President Michel Temer reaches the six-month mark as head of South America’s largest country, over the weekend, the Temer administration released a video account of the president’s accomplishments so far.
“After a long winter it seems that a light has been turned on in the horizon,” said President Temer in a video released of his accomplishment during these past six months.
The video notes that the government cut more than 4,000 commissioned positions and reduced the number of ministries. Some of these cuts, however, were simply positions which were left unoccupied and although the Administration did reduce the number of Ministries from 32 to 24, one of them, the Culture Ministry, was only left as a separate government ministry after Brazilian artists and intellectuals protested.
In the economic front, the video highlights that inflation has decreased and that for the first time in four years the benchmark interest rate was reduced by Brazil’s Central Bank. The video also shows that gasoline prices decreased at refineries, although at the pumps the decrease has not been seen, and in some states the fuel has actually increased in price due to the increase in ethanol prices.
The Temer Administration also boasts that during the past six months, consumer and business confidence has slowly started to recover and that forecasts for industrial production and sales next year look promising.
In the social front, however, the Administration highlights that it has conducted audits on major social programs, such as Bolsa Familia (Family Scholarship) and Minha Casa Minha Vida (My House, My Life), removing hundreds of families from these programs.
In the environmental sector, government officials noted that Brazil, during the Temer Administration, was one of the first countries to confirm its participation in the Paris Agreement, an effort by more than 190 countries to contain climate change.