Brazil’s Senate CPI deputy chair says summoning economy minister Guedes is inevitable

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – After the testimony of ex-minister of health Luiz Henrique Mandetta, the vice president of the Covid CPI (investigation committee), senator Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede-AP), said that “the summoning of economy minister Paulo Guedes” by the committee had “become inevitable.”

During the hearing, Mandetta said that the economic team ignored warnings and “did not understand the extent” of the crisis. “I believe it is urgent, it is my assessment, to consider the petition to summon Minister Paulo Guedes,” said the senator.

Randolfe Rodrigues is the author of the request calling for the summoning of the minister of economy. According to him, through Mandetta’s testimony it was clear that there were two commands in the direction of measures concerning the pandemic, and that the conflict between health and economy had the involvement of Guedes.

The CPI rapporteur, Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL), said he supports the summoning of the economy minister.

“Distancing”

In response to a question from Senator Leila Barros (PSB-DF) during the hearing on Tuesday, Mandetta said that there was “distancing” between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Economy’s teams, and that this affected the assessment of the economic impacts of the pandemic and the government’s responses even in relation to emergency aid. In Mandetta’s evaluation, “many decisions were ultimately wrong.”

“I dare say that this notion that there would be a herd effect and that [the pandemic] would end in September, October, as they thought: ‘Look, in September, October this is over, because we’ll have herd immunity’. I think this ultimately led them to make a proposal for a R$600 aid, believing that there would be 3, 4 months of aid and then it would be over, not realizing that the disease was only in its first third,” Mandetta said.

Other requests

According to Randolfe, there is still no set date for voting on the request to summon Guedes, but he considers it possible to include it in the administrative meeting on Wednesday, May 5, which depends on an agreement. Among the requests “agreed upon” for voting, according to Randolfe, is one that asks for the presence of Fabio Wajngarten, former head of the federal government’s Secretariat of Communication, and representatives of laboratories and institutions that produce vaccines against Covid-19.

The senator also hopes the request to summon the Minister of Justice, Anderson Torres, to be approved, who said in an interview to Veja magazine that he would request information from the Federal Police about the investigations that involve governors in alleged embezzlement of health funds.

“The request related to Fabio Wajngarten must be considered tomorrow [Wednesday], the summoning [of representatives] of the different immunizers and, I believe, of the Minister of Justice because of his recent interview,” said Randolfe.

According to the CPI rapporteur, Renan Calheiros (MDB-AL), Mandetta’s testimony was “beyond any expectation.” About the hearing with ex-minister Eduardo Pazuello, which was scheduled for Wednesday, May 5, but was ultimately rescheduled for May 19, Renan said that the deferral represented both ” a loss and a gain.”

“A loss because we will only hear him on May 19, and a gain because it seems that there is a change: he wants to testify remotely because he is against crowds,” said Renan.