Rousseff announces eight ministries reduction

President Dilma Rousseff announced the ministry overhaul, reducing eight ministries. The new ministerial configuration, defined Thursday (Oct. 1) and aided by ex-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, includes cutting and merging ministries and also relocating ministers.

Designing her team, the PMDB had expanded from six to seven the number of ministries run by the party. Among the ministries that the party is now running are Health, led by deputy Marcelo Castro, and Science and Technology, led by Celso Pansera. Secretariat for Fishery has merged the Agriculture Ministry.

Office of Institutional Security lost the status of ministry, and Secretariat for Strategic Affairs will be shut down. General Secretariat of the Presidency has merged the Institutional Relations and is now called Secretariat for the Government, which will be responsible for the Office of Institutional Security and for the Secretariat for Small Businesses.

The president also announced the creation of the Ministry of Women, Racial Equality and Human Rights, merging Secretariat for Human Rights, Secretariat for Racial Equality and Secretariat for Women's Rights.

The president further announced that a limit will be established on spending on telephone, airline tickets and daily spending, the pay of ministerial officials will be reduced in ten percent, and all the lease and service contracts will be reviewed. She also announced that efficiency targets to water and energy use will be set, in addition to extinguishing 3,000 positions of trust. She also declared that up to 20% will be reduced on the cost of spending and on outsourcing hiring by requiring the creation of an automobile central to reduce and improve the fleet operating within the ministries.

"By these initiatives, which will have to be constantly strengthened, we want to help Brazil to quickly overcome the crisis, [resuming] growth, generating employment and income. This reform will help us to implement the measures already taken for the fiscal balancing and those that are in progress," reported the president, further declaring that "it will redress, therefore, the fiscal balance, to control inflation and consolidate the macroeconomic stability, increasing the confidence in economy," she added.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta