Big government changes in Brazil foreseen
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from March 1991.
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Ozires Silva resigned this week from a post which put him in charge of the state-run oil industry, mining and telecommunications. His budget was the largest of any government ministry.
Silva, noted for his straightforwardness, cited only "personal reasons" for his departure. A 60-year-old businessman who made his name as an aircraft manufacturer, Silva is the most important figure to quit the one-year-old government of President Collor.
The new minister is Eduardo Teixeira, president of the state oil monopoly Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras).
Like his predecessor, Teixeira is a technocrat. But analysts said Silva's departure could be the start of a major shakeup in the government and a shift from technocrats to politicians.
"I have the impression that within the next three months the government will change a lot," said Bolivar Lamounier, a prominent political scientist in Sao Paulo. He said Economy Minister Zelia Cardoso de Mello, a young university academic and architect of a draconian austerity programme which caused the economy to shrink by 4.6 per cent last year, could lose her job, even though the new infrastructure minister is one of her proteges.
Lamounier said Collor could pick a new economic team with more support in Congress and with more emphasis on digging Brazil out of its current recession.
Brazil's recession, combined with Cardoso's failure to stem inflation, have caused some politicians to declare that economics is much too serious a matter to be left to economists.
The Agencia Estado news agency said Silva's resignation had been partly caused by Cardoso's persistent refusal to approve investment proposals which he put forward.
