Government to use provisional measure to regulate railways
The Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcisio Freitas, said that the federal government will send to Congress a Provisional Measure (MP) to boost private-sector investment in the railroad sector. In a live-streamed interview with Valor on Tuesday, in partnership with the National Association of Railway Carriers (ANTF), he said that the bill that creates a new legal framework for railroads has been stuck in the Senate since 2018 and that is why the government has decided to change its strategy.The tactic resembles, in a way, the one used in the privatization of Eletrobras, which also had a bill stalled in Congress and only took off when it was turned into an MP. In the case of railroads, bill 261 was presented in 2018 by Senator José Serra (Brazilian Social Democratic Party, PSDB, of São Paulo), but little progress was made. The rapporteur, Jean Paul Prates (Workers’ Party, PT, of Rio Grande do Norte), is still discussing changes to the text.According to the minister, the government intends to send the MP to Congress to accelerate the approval of the new framework. One of the main changes is to allow new railroads to be built by the authorization regime, through free initiative of the private sector. Today, it can only invest in concession projects auctioned by the government.The Ministry expects to make possible investments of around R$25 billion in new railway stretches, such as Sete Lagoas-São Mateus and Pirapora-Unaí.According to Mr. Freitas, the delay in the approval of the 2018 bill has led different states to create legal frameworks that provide for the authorization regime. He cited Mato Grosso’s state railroad project, launched this week. "The state law is quite welcome," he said. However, the minister evaluates that other cases may not have the same "synergy" with the planning of the federal network."It is necessary to discipline the subject a little so that we can make state and federal initiatives coexist, without loss of efficiency in the connection of these projects. Maybe, for this reason, it is more efficient to issue this provisional measure today, since our initiative of promoting the discussion within the scope of the bill has not succeeded," the minister said.Mr. Freitas said that the authorization regime, established in the MP, is one of the three pillars of the Bolsonaro administration’s strategy to expand private-sector investment in railroads.Two other expansion fronts involve offering new concessions in auctions, such as...
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