BRAZIL: Temer's Ally, House Deputy Criticize Auction And Economic Team

(RTTNews) - Deputy speaker of the Brazilian House of Representatives, Fábio Ramalho (PMDB/MG), released a statement regretting that the state-owned power distributor Cemig was unable to hold any of the plants sold Wednesday in an auction at the B3 stock exchange.

According to him, the economic team did not work on behalf of Brazil and made the negotiations difficult. He also said that from now on it will be harder to negotiate the pension reform bill in the Brazilian Congress.

"The government was held hostage by the economic team, especially the Minister of Planning, Dyogo Oliveira, who not only did not comply with his word, at the last moment, made an additional requirement: a specific letter of guarantee for the Miranda, a demand impossible to be fulfilled in such a short time," he complained.

Tuesday afternoon, Ramalho told Agência CMA that the state-owned power company would maintain the Miranda hydroelectric plant, which was sold Wednesday for R$ 1.3 billion to the Engie consortium.