The purpose of the system is to simplify tax payments and the clearance of goods.

The website provides in-depth information on import procedures, interacting with inspection bodies, carrying out payments of taxes and service fees, as well as enabling users to upload of additional documentation and apply for tax revisions. The system allows for taxes to be paid using credit cards.

“The partnership with the Secretariat of Finance streamlines all importation processes. This enables buyers to carry out all procedures online and get the goods at home.

However, in order for this to happen, no matter what the source country, the buyer must choose to make a registered order,” said Postal Service president Guilherme Campos.

According to the Brazilian Postal Service, some 21 million people have ordered items online, with purchases reaching 2.4 billion reais(US$ 739 million).

Airport Concessions

Thirteen airports have been included in the Brazilian federal government’s privatizations program (Programa Nacional de Desestatização) via Decree 9,180/17, issued by president Michel Temer and published this Wednesday (25) in the Federal Official Gazette.

The decree makes the airports eligible for the federal government’s Investment Partnerships Program (Programa de Parcerias de Investimentos – PPI).

The 13 facilities may be put under concession to the private sector in standalone fashion or in groups. Decisions regarding this will be based on privatization modeling studies.

Last July saw the government announce 57 projects for concession and privatization of state-run companies, including 14 airports – among them Congonhas, in São Paulo, the country’s second biggest with an annual passenger throughput of 21 million. This airport, however, was left out of the list made public in the Official Gazette.

ABr

The measure was announced just hours after the government declared its intention to sell Eletrobrás, Brazil’s largest energy company.

The new concessions will be carried out through a package that intends to tender the administration of 14 airports – including the Congonhas aircraft terminal in São Paulo – 11 lots of electric transmission lines, 15 port terminals, two highways, and several public companies such as the mint, where the country’s tickets and passports are produced.

The presidential office claims the privatizations will generate important investments in oil and gas, energy, roads, airports and ports.

It will also create employment and income in Brazil, according to Moreira Franco, Minister to General Secretariat of the Presidency.

But the measure has provoked strong criticism from social organizations and leftist political parties in the country, who assert that the privatization of state assets favors business interests and non-citizens.

Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said during an interview with Brazilian media outlet Globo that the maneuver would lead to a rise in public debts and force Brazil to resort to its international reserves.

In Lula’s opinion, the reserve funds should be used to rebuild the Brazilian economy.

“When they have nothing to sell, they are going to sell their souls to the devil,” added the ex-president.

Eletrobrás

Brazil’s surprise move to privatize Centrais Elétricas Brasileiras SA sent the utility’s shares soaring nearly 50% on Tuesday as investors bet the plan augured further moves to loosen the government’s grip on the economy.

The transaction should be concluded by mid-2018 and could involve the sale of new stock to help replenish the capital of Eletrobras, as the holding company is known, Mines and Energy Minister Fernando Coelho Filho revealed.

While the plan involves the end of federal government voting control at Eletrobras, it remains to be decided how much of its 51% voting stake will be sold and how, deputy Finance Minister Eduardo Guardia said. Proceeds should help cut the deficit, he said, noting the plan could also bring recurring revenue under certain conditions.

President Michel Temer has rushed to sell state assets and shrink the size of Brazil’s government before leaving office in December 2018. Investors cheered his efforts to reduce state meddling in an economy hobbled by a three-year recession, lifting the benchmark Bovespa stock index on Tuesday past 70,000 points for the first time in almost seven years.

The plan comes as Chief Executive Officer Wilson Ferreira Jr’s turnaround has taken longer than expected because of years of mismanagement at Eletrobras and massive operational losses between 2012 and 2015.

Investors said the Eletrobras plan stoked optimism that Temer remains committed to shrinking the role of the state in the economy, regardless of political resistance to his administration.

“This could be extended to other state firms, which is good for fiscal and market reasons,” said Victor Carvalho, a partner at fund manager LAIC-HFM in São Paulo.

According to Coelho Filho, Eletrobrás’s privatization could raise up to 20 billion reais (US$ 6.3 billion). The federal government will remain a shareholder and reserve the right to veto some strategic decisions.

Lula’s Reaction

Former Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva has criticized President Michel Temer’s plan to sell Eletrobrás, the country’s largest, publicly-controlled power company.

The Temer-controlled Mining and Energy Ministry notified Eletrobrás of the plan and announced that it intends to deliver the proposal to the Temer administration, which continues to oversee mass privatization, arguing the move would make the company “more competitive and agile.”

“I must prove to these folks,” Lula said, “that we don’t have to sell Eletrobrás. What we have to do is hang our heads in shame and work because this country can be much better.”

Speaking in Sergipe state as part of his “Caravan of Hope” tour, the former president argued that Eletrobrás should remain publicly owned — currently, the Brazilian government owns just over 56 percent of its shares.

Lula declared that “if the justice department allows him” to participate as a presidential candidate in 2018, he will “win and do more,” including protecting state-run services.

“We will not rest until the people’s dignity is restored,” he added.

Former President Dilma Rousseff took to Twitter to denounce the move: “Selling Eletrobrás is giving up energy security. As happened in 2001, in the FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso) government, it means leaving the country subject to blackouts.”

She continued: “The result is only one: the consumer will pay a stratospheric light bill for energy that will not have guaranteed supply.”

Rousseff was impeached in a parliamentary coup in August 2016, paving the way for the senate-imposed government of Temer and its neoliberal policies. At the beginning of the Lula administration, Rousseff headed the Mining and Energy ministry between 2003 and 2005.

Eletrobrás is the biggest electricity utility company in Latin America and the tenth biggest in the world. Through its subsidiaries, it owns 40 percent of Brazil’s generation capacity, most of it from hydroelectric power plants, and it controls 69 percent of the country’s electricity distribution.

The company was set up by the left leaning president, João Goulart, in 1962. The Brazilian state currently owns, directly and indirectly, just over 56 percent of its shares. The rest are traded on the São Paulo stock exchange, as well as on the New York and Madrid stock exchanges.

Critics immediately denounced the ministry’s move as another part of the government’s attempt to tackle its public spending deficit of almost US$ 50 billion by cutting social welfare and privatizing public assets.

The leader of the opposition Workers’ Party, or PT, in the senate, Lindbergh Farias, denounced the sale of Eletrobras as “a crime against the nation.”

The Ministry of Energy has not said how much of the government’s stake it wants to sell. It did say the sale would follow the pattern set in selling state shares in Brazil’s leading aircraft manufacturer, Embraer, and the iron mining giant, Vale. It insisted the government would retain some shares and a power of veto over strategic decisions.

According to the ministry, the problems at Eletrobrás result from 15 years of inefficiency, and “have cost society almost a quarter of a trillion dollars.”

After winning a vote in Congress early this month to block corruption charges against him, Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, promised to accelerate his program of reforms. These include reductions in labor and pension rights, cuts to anti-poverty programs, and the rolling back of land rights for Brazil’s Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian communities.

Taking Orders from Washington

In a Thursday statement, the Workers Party of Brazil denounced the privatization wave announced by the Temer government, saying that the government only serves “big international capital” and called on Brazilians to “resist in all possible ways.”

“In the country of the coup, the big decisions are made in Washington and Wall Street, and the order given is to sell and loot Brazil,” the Workers Party said in a statement on Thursday.

The party founded by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called on Brazilian people to “resist in all possible ways the crimes that condemn the country and future generations to dependence, backwardness and submission.”

The parliamentary coup, which removed the elected president Dilma Rousseff and installed the right-wing government of Michel Temer, “always had as its main purpose the goal of pushing Brazil back to the colonial era, to become a small, dependant country, technologically backward and submissive to the interests of big international capital,” the statement said.

“In reality,” the Workers Party says, “the real reason for the implementation of these anti-Brazilian measures is to carry out large business deals that only enrich the coup leaders and their partners to the detriment of national interests.”

Workers Party founder and former president of Brazil is currently on a tour, called the “Caravan of Hope” looking to unify resistance against Temer and identify the needs of the people ahead of the 2018 presidential elections.

“When they have nothing to sell, they are going to sell their souls to the devil,” the ex-President said recently about the planned privatizations.

Mercopress/teleSUR

The package, which has been elaborated by the federal government’s infrastructure team, according to Poder360, includes the privatization of airports, oil blocks, hydropower plants and other strategic, government-owned entities.

If sales reach the government’s estimations, it will collect a total of almost US$ 9 billion by the end of 2017 and US$ 19 billion by the end of 2018, according to Brasil 24/7.

However, the deals will not be easily finalized as companies that receive government grants are returning their assets to the state.

Triunfo and UTC construction companies are good examples. Unable to pay their debts, they’ve surrendered operations over Viracopos Airport in Campinas, in the state of São Paulo.

The multi-billion dollar privatization package comes amid a host of austerity measures implemented or proposed by president Temer who has a less than a 5 percent approval rating.

A regressive labor reform bill had been passed in July. It radically altered more than a hundred clauses in Brazil’s Consolidated Labor Law which was first introduced in 1943 by President Getúlio Vargas.

While Temer’s vision of new labor laws radically increases work hours while drastically decreasing worker’s rights, his proposal for pension reform would scrap the average retirement age of 54, making it mandatory that women retire at 62 and men at 65.

His administration has also approved a 20-year freeze on all public spending.

Unprotected Borders

Budget cuts imposed on the Armed Forces by Michel Temer’s administration left Brazil’s borders unprotected, warned the Brasil 24/7 publication.

As a consequence of the lack of resources, it was necessary to interrupt the implementation of the Integrated Border Monitoring System (SISFRON), assisting in the control of the illegal entry of weapons and drugs into the country, 24/7 said.

SISFRON was established in 2012 and should be completed by 2022. But it only covered 600 of the 17,000 kilometers of borders.

According to the Armed Forces, the system suffered a freeze of over a third of the budgetary resources foreseen for this year, which should be in the order of R$ 427 million (over US$ 130 million).

High-military commanders warned that the annual budget cut provided by Temer government puts Brazil Armed Forces at risk of collapsing.

According to the Armed Forces, the 40 percent decrease in resources available for this year is only enough to cover expenses until September, the source said.

teleSUR

The value represents a surcharge of 348% over the value stipulated by the government.

The concession in Guarulhos, the busiest terminal in Brazil, was granted to the Invepar-ACSA consortium, which includes the Brazilian Invepar (90%) – an association between construction company OAS and civil servant pension funds – and Airports Company South Africa (10%), which offered R$ 16.213 billion for the operation.

The total should be paid to the government in annual instalments over a period of 20 years, the period of the contract.

Viracopos, in Campinas, went to the Aeroportos Brasil consortium, established by the Brazilian Triunfo Participações e Investimentos (45%), UTC Participações (45%) and the French Egis Airport Operation (10%), which will pay R$ 3.8 billion (US$ 2.2 billion). The concession will be for 30 years.

Brasília Airport was the only one auctioned in open outcry, as in the other two cases no other company offered more than the proposals presented by the winners early on in the process.

Inframerica Aeroportos, established by the Brazilian Infravix (50%) and by the Argentine Corporacion America (50%), won with little over R$ 4.5 billion (US$ 2.6 billion), after a dispute with Operadora Brasileira de Aeroportos (OBA), which includes the Spanish OHL and AENA Desarollo Internacional.

The duration of the contract is 25 years. In August 2011, Inframerica was the winner of the auction of São Gonçalo do Amarante airport, in Rio Grande do Norte, the first promoted by the federal government of Brazil.

The three values paid exceed the minimum established by the government by 373% in the case of Guarulhos, 159% in Campinas and 675% in Brasília. In all, 11 consortiums participated in the auction.

The minister of the Civil Aviation Secretariat (SAC), Wagner Bittencourt, qualified the result as “very expressive”, in a press conference promoted after the auction. “We continue with positive signs that the country is a place in which investment is safe and profitable,” he said. “We had very aggressive bids right from the start, which shows the appetite of participants,” he added.

The start of transition of management of the terminals to the concession holders is scheduled to take place in May, and the process should take six months, extensible for another six. The consortia will have to establish specific purpose societies to control the airports, which will have a 49% share belonging to the Brazilian Airport Infrastructure Company (Infraero), the state-owned company that is the current operator. The company, however, will participate in the profits, but not in management, according to the government.

The concession holders will have to invest in expansion of the airports. The value forecasted for investment in Guarulhos is R$ 4.6 billion (US$ 2.7 billion), with R$ 1.38 billion (US$ 803 million) before the 2014 World Cup, to take place in the country.

In Brasília, the total is R$ 2.8 billion (US$ 1.6 billion), with R$ 626.53 million (US$ 364.6 million) up to the World Cup. In the case of Campinas, total estimated investment is R$ 8.7 billion (US$ 5.1 billion), being R$ 873.05 million (US$ 508.1 million) before the World Cup.

The final value forecasted for Campinas is greater because, according to Bittencourt, the airport may become the largest in Brazil in the long term, with capacity for 90 million passengers a year and four runways in operation.

In the medium term, the total to be invested in Guarulhos is greater because the airport is currently the busiest, with around 30 million passengers a year and is already crowded.

In the works for the Cup, the consortia aim to use financing by the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES).

During the auction, there was a protest by union leaders in front of the Bovespa. They carried Brazilian and National Airport Worker’s Union flags and those of union groups, especially the Central Worker’s Union.

The protesters screamed against privatisations and the BNDES’ financing of investment by the consortia, as it is a state-owned bank. With the end of Infraero control over airports, there are fears of unemployment in the category, something that the government denies.

Anba

According to a press statement by the Secom, in the airports of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo alone, the funds invested should reach 819 million reais (US$ 446 million) and R$ 1.49 billion (US$ 811 million) respectively.

The president at Infraero, Cleonilson Nicácio, informed that when the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa) disclosed the 12 cities to host matches, the company had already scheduled investment in 10 of them.

The airports to receive the funds are Afonso Pena, in Curitiba, Confins and Pampulha, in Belo Horizonte, Eduardo Gomes, in Manaus, Guararapes, in Recife, Juscelino Kubitschek, in Brasí­lia, Marechal Rondon, in Cuiabá, Pinto Martins, in Fortaleza, Salgado Filho, in Porto Alegre, as well as Santos Dumont, in Rio and Congonhas, Guarulhos and Viracopos, in São Paulo.

According to the Secom press statement, investment in the Augusto Severo airport, in Natal, and Luí­s Eduardo Magalhães, in Salvador, is still being discussed. The Infraero president added that, according to the company schedule, most of the works should be ready by 2013.

Anba

In Rio’s Tom Jobim international airport, people after waiting over six hours still couldn’t get a confirmation for their flights this Wednesday. 

Airlines not only didn’t know what to tell ticket holders they also were overwhelmed by the lines and complaints and were not able to provide food and lodging for all stranded passengers.

After a chaotic day in the main Brazilian airports, Air Force commander, brigadier Luiz Carlos Bueno, at the end of the night, announced that the equipment that had failed at Cindacta 1, the air control center in capital Brasí­lia, was working fine and that flights were back to normal.

According to the Air Force chief this was the first time the communication radios failed so dramatically. The malfunction at Brasí­lia’s Air Defense and Air Traffic Control Integrated Center in motion a chain of trouble with flight delays, cancellations and public discontent throughout the day. At 7:30 pm all takeoffs (around 100 of them) from Congonhas (São Paulo), Confins (Belo Horizonte) and Brasí­lia had been cancelled.

The crisis became so severe that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held an emergency late-night meeting with Defense Minister Waldir Pires, Air Force commander Luiz Carlos Bueno, chief of staff Dilma Rousseff, and Milton Zuanazzi, the president of ANAC (Brazilian Civil Aviation Agency). It was already 10:15 when the encounter ended.

Pires informed that the president has ordered the purchase of radio equipment similar to that used in Brasí­lia for the São Paulo airport. The reasoning behind it is that this new equipment might be used as backup in case Cindacta 1 once again acts up.

According to him, Lula had asked for assurance that Brazil would never again endure a flight paralyzation like the one that occurred Tuesday. And he concluded: "The flights are being restored at this moment and tomorrow (this Wednesday) the situation will be back to normal."

Bueno told reporters that yesterday’s cancelled flights had been rescheduled for today:  "It is true," he said,  "that there is a very large quantity of accumulated flights here in Brasí­lia, so that you may expect some delay for some specific locations. But everything is restored."

Colonel-aviator Carlos Vuyk de Aquino, Cindacta 1’s commander,  told reporters that the trouble in Brasí­lia was caused by a failure in the connection between the radio frequencies’ active and backup systems. Both operate together amounting to a total of 20 different frequency bands. With the breakdown, communications were reduced to 13 frequencies.

At about 1 pm, yesterday, the whole radio communication system went down. At that time, as a safety measure, Brasí­lia’s air control center  directed all planes flying in their area to immediately land and subsequently prevented planes from taking off from that airport, which is a hub between the north and the south of Brazil.