Brazil: Government Appoints Commission To Privatize Eletrobras

A special congressional committee has been formed to analyze federal bill PL 9463/18, which proposed the privatization of Brazil's state-owned energy company, Eletrobras. The commission, which was set up after Senate-imposed Brazilian President Michel Temer was unable to secure enough votes to implement pension reforms, is composed of 35 members of Congress and will include an equal number of substitute members.

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The group is scheduled to convene in Brasilia at 4:00 p.m. local time to elect a president and vice-president.

PL 9463/18 is characterized as the economic priority of Brazil's executive branch. Congressman Jose Carlos Aleluia, who serves as rapporteur of the proposal, has made his intentions clear to vote in favor of the measure. He claims that the intention of the bill is to restructure Eletrobras, transforming it into a larger company and improve management.

However, Erika Kokay, a member of the Workers' Party, or PT, and coordinator for the Parliamentary Front in Defense of the Brazilian Electric Sector criticized the Temer administration for wanting to privatize the country's largest electric power generation company.

She stated that the federal government was not concerned with the financial health of the company or services to the people, but seeks to renounce its energy sovereignty by handing over the state-owned company to private, transnational corporations.

Eletrobras, through its subsidiaries, is responsible for 69 percent of Brazil's electricity distribution.

With Brazil's budget deficit calculated at reaching almost US$50 billion dollars as of August last year, the Temer administration has been preparing a privatization package that could net US$28 billion dollars by the end of 2018. However, seventy percent of Brazil's population is against privatizing state-owned companies, according to a December poll published by Datafolha.