The Planning Minister in Brazil’s interim government, Romero Juca, said he would step aside. -AFP Photo
BRASILIA: Brazilian Planning Minister Romero Juca on Monday announced that he had requested a “discharge” from his post.
“I’m going to request a discharge from my post until such time as the Attorney General’s Office expresses itself about my case,” said Juca after accompanying Acting President Michel Temer and other ministers from the economic area to a meeting with Senate chief Renan Calheiros.
“Starting (Tuesday), I will be separated from my post until my situation is defined. If (the judiciary) says that I have not committed any crime, as my attorneys and I claim, it will fall to President Michel Temer to invite me into the government once again,” he said.
Juca said that, during this absence, the key Planning portfolio will be administered by the current deputy minister, Dyogo Enrique de Oliveira, but in political circles the word is that Temer has begun seeking a definitive replacement.
Some five hours earlier, Juca had called a press conference at which he said once again that he had not thought about resigning and downplayed the controversial audiotape that seems to implicate him in the Petrobras corruption scandal.
At the press conference, Juca denied that he sought to manipulate the investigation into the Petrobras corruption scandal.
“I have nothing to fear and I don’t owe anybody anything,” declared Juca at the press conference at which he discussed a tape released by the daily Folha de Sao Paulo suggesting that he intended to strike a “deal” to “limit” the investigation.
According to Juca – who is close to Acting President Michel Temer, who replaced suspended President Dilma Rousseff – the audiotape is real, but it is being “taken out of context” and gives a “mistaken idea” about what he discussed with the ex-president of state-run Transpetro, Sergio Machado, who is being investigated in the Petrobras case.
However, when Temer went to the Senate along with Juca and the other ministers, Folha de Sao Paulo revealed the complete audiotape and said that Juca’s statements were not taken out of context but that they really did refer to the Petrobras investigation.
The minister said at the press conference that he “always” had declared his firm support for the Petrobras investigation and had asked “more than once” for the judiciary to clarify his situation after being listed as one of the possible beneficiaries of the conspiracy by one of the whistleblowers in the case.–BERNAMA-NNN-EFE