By Paul Kiernan
ASSOCIATED PRESS President Rousseff presenting new ministers in
her cabinet in March. RIO DE JANEIRO--In his earlier career as an
evangelical pastor, Eduardo Lopes was, as Jesus called his
apostles, a fisher of men.
Now he runs Brazil's Fishing and Aquaculture Ministry, nominated
earlier this year by President Dilma Rousseff.
The post gives the president's Pentecostal allies in Congress a
voice in her cabinet--never mind that fishing hauls in just 0.1% of
Brazil's export revenue.
Mr. Lopes is one of 39 members of Brazil's presidential cabinet,
which is the biggest among the world's 10 largest economies. A
potent symbol of government bloat, its members have tripled in
number since 1990.
Now, the cabinet, long a focus of taxpayer ire, is in the cross
hairs of Ms. Rousseff's presidential rival in the Oct. 26 runoff
election.
If elected, Social Democracy Party candidate Aécio Neves said he
would cut his cabinet by up to half, putting Brazil roughly in line
with most developed countries.
"It's an embarrassment that Brazil today is run by almost 40
ministries, just to help cronies," Mr. Neves said recently.
In addition to standard ministries such as labor and defense,
Brazil's cabinet includes a Ministry of Sports, a Ministry of
Science and Technology, a Ministry of National Integration tasked
with reducing regional inequality, and two separate agriculture
ministries. It has a Ministry of Cities that budgets more for
administrative costs than for urban planning.
Cabinet positions in Brazil pay more than $140,000 a year plus
benefits--equivalent to roughly 16 times the average salary.
Collectively, the 39 offices are expected to spend as much as
185.2 billion reais ($76.5 billion) this year on personnel and
pensions, according to the federal budget. Total expenditures are
harder to assess. The Planning Ministry said it didn't have a clear
breakdown of the cabinet's operating costs.
But political experts say trimming the cabinet wouldn't be
easy--and would pose a special challenge for Mr. Neves, whose party
is set to control just 54 of the 513 seats in Brazil's lower house
of Congress. Brazilian presidents must forge alliances with up to
32 political parties to pass laws, and granting cabinet positions
is a proven way to gain support.
"They pass them out like little favors," said David Fleischer, a
political-science professor at the University of Brasília.
When Ms. Rousseff wanted to cut red tape for small entrepreneurs
last year, she created Brazil's newest cabinet to tackle it: the
Secretary of the Micro and Small Business. The recipient of the
post was Guilherme Afif Domingos, of the Social Democratic Party,
which is supporting her bid for re-election.
Ms. Rousseff's campaign defended her cabinet selection in an
email, saying: "President Dilma's government team is composed using
criteria of professional competence, experience in the field of
work and aptitude of the professionals."
Patronage jobs are handed out by political leaders world-wide.
But many Brazilian cabinet officials stand out for their lack of
expertise in the ministries they lead.
Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobão, for instance, was a
lawyer and journalist before embarking on his long career in
politics. Within his purview are agencies regulating two of
Brazil's biggest companies, mining giant Vale SA and
state-controlled oil producer Petrobras.
Experts in both areas question the ability of 78-year-old Mr.
Lobão to guide oversight of such critical sectors of the economy.
But his party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, is the
largest in the Senate and forms a pillar of the government's
coalition. The ministry declined to comment.
As for Mr. Lopes, the fishing minister, he says he has fished
enough times to "know how to put a worm on a hook."
Created in 2009 by former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,
the Ministry of Fishing is supposed stimulate production and
regulate the industry. In practice, Brazil's seafood exports
dropped 43% in the decade after the office was created, and fishing
along its 5,000 miles of coast goes largely unregulated, fishermen
and experts say.
Mr. Lopes sees an upside. He contends Brazil could increase fish
and seafood production nearly tenfold to 20 million tons a year by
pushing aquaculture.
"The fishing sector has the ability to become a large percentage
of the economy," Mr. Lopes said. "Fishing needs its own ministry to
take care of it."
As for enforcement of fishing regulations, Mr. Lopes said that
is the responsibility of environmental authorities rather than his
ministry.
If Mr. Neves is elected, the Ministry of Fishing and Aquaculture
may be cooked. He said recently that he would likely turn it into a
secretariat within a "super-ministry" of agriculture.
Latin America's largest fishing country, Peru, has a
vice-minister of fishing whose team is subordinate to the broader
Production Ministry.
Gil Castello Branco, founder the government-spending watchdog
Contas Abertas, said other potential consolidation targets include
the Transport Ministry, Communications Ministry, Secretary of Ports
and Secretary of Civil Aviation, cabinets that could all be bundled
into a future infrastructure ministry. Ditto for the secretaries of
racial equality, women's policies and human rights, which he says
could fall under the Justice Ministry.
While reducing the cabinet alone won't solve Brazil's fiscal
challenges, Mr. Castello Branco said it would speak volumes about
the nation's priorities.
"It would send a strong signal of more austere, streamlined
administration," Mr. Castello Branco said. "These days the
impression you have is that there are no brakes on public spending,
particularly on personnel, and so Brazil doesn't have the ability
to invest."
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