beyondbrics

Yet another minister in president Dilma Rousseff’s cabinet is fighting for his political life after a magazine published corruption allegations against him.

Orlando Silva, minister of sport, was accused of taking kickbacks by the weekly Veja magazine, putting in question Brazil’s preparations for the World Cup football final in 2014 and the Olympics two years later.

Rousseff’s government has shed ministers like banana peels in the fewer than 10 months it has been in office. Four have been dismissed over corruption scandals, one over an ethics scandal and one for speaking out of turn.

Most of them have been heavyweights. They include Rousseff’s onetime most senior cabinet member, former chief of staff Antonio Palocci, defence minister Nelson Jobim, who was sacked for publicly criticizing his colleagues in government, and former agriculture minister Wagner Rossi.

Silva has denied the allegations against him. But they come at an inconvenient time for Rousseff, who needs to show that her government is getting on with business rather than constantly putting out fires.

The Veja report accused Silva of running a scheme in which his ministry charged 20 per cent kickbacks on public contracts, the proceeds of which went to his political grouping, the Communist Party. The scheme allegedly dates back to 2004

Rousseff is reportedly standing by the minister for now, who is calling for an investigation to clear his name.

“We trust that the minister will clarify the subject. He has shown a willingness to do so,” Agência Brasil, a news agency, reported Rousseff’s current chief of staff Gleisi Hoffman as saying after a meeting with Silva. “It was a quiet meeting, it was not to ask for explanations, but to offer support to his explanations, ” she said in a statement released by the press office.

Rousseff has so far managed to present the loss of her ministers as housecleaning.

But she will be wanting the scandals to come to an end. If a house needs this much cleaning, then it must have been very dirty to begin with. Rousseff will have to take some blame for that because this is after all, her house.

And the constant “cleaning” is an unwelcome distraction from governing, particularly amid concerns Brazil is falling behind on preparations for the games.

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