Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro issued a decree Tuesday which includes the Brazilian Coin House (Casa da Moeda) in the National Privatization Program (PND). The National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) will monitor the sale of this historic public asset.
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"The Mint was born to guarantee national sovereignty. Its creation met the demand of a booming economy during the Brazilian mining cycle in the late 17th century," local media Racoontaai recalled.
"It can produce 3.5 billion banknotes and 4 billion coins a year, apart from the issuance of postage and holographic stamps, passports and other products which are sold to Brazil and the world."
Aluizio Junior, the National Union of Coin Acceptors president, criticized harshly the decision taken by the Bolsonaro administration.
“The Mint managers acted in ways which do not protect the interests of the company and its employees... They are dismantling the Mint to hand it over to private interests," Junior said and added that it seems abusive to place national essential services in hands of foreign private investors.
"Bolsonaro is a boot licker and holds a street mongrel complex so large that he prefers that the U.S. make the Brazilian money. Maximum symbol of a crude capachismo. What a shame!
“Except Canada, all the world's major powers own a public company which makes their bills and coins. Brazil walks in the opposite direction. It is unreasonable to imagine such a thing.”
In 2017, during the administration of Michel Temer, who came to power after a "technical coup" d'etat against the leftist economist Dilma Rousseff, the Presidency General Secretariat Moreira Franco announced that about 57 state-owned assets would be privatized.
At that time, Franco justified the privatization of public assets by claiming that private companies would generate investments in oil, gas, energy, highways, airports and ports.
The sale of the Brazilian Mint was included in the 2017 privatization plans, which Bolsonaro is actually carrying out at an accelerated pace.