Government reforms transport field

The federal government is preparing a restructuring of the agencies responsible for public works in highways, railroads and waterways.  The reform will bring about changes in Brazilian National Infrastructure Valec state railway company, and transform the semi abandoned  CONDOMAR (Maranhão Dock Company) in a waterway construction arm.

In the view of government officials engaged in the restructuring of the Ministry of Transport, changes are required especially to upgrade DNIT, in order  to make the department less burdened and pave way for their budget execution finally take off. The government department will deal exclusively with interventions in federal roads, changing its name to Road Infrastructure Department.

Currently, DNIT has a midsize incentive program of approximately 1.5 billion dollars investments  in railroads. There are plans for rail contours are variants in cities as Araraquara,  São Paulo, Camaçari, Bahia, and Joinville, Santa Catarina, in addition to switching yards for trains. In general, these are works are  aimed to increase the efficiency of existing railroads that have already been granted to private companies in the 90s – e.g. for preventing intersections between rails and avenues or highways. According the concession agreements, these interventions are the government’s responsibility.

All this will no longer be DNIT assignment and will be passed to Valec that is already undergoing a functions redefinition process. The state company, so called because it was  a branch of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce before the privatization of the mining company, will probably change its name: the most likely new name is Empresa Ferroviária Nacional (EFN).

Besides performing the works to be inherited from DNIT, the new company will be responsible for completing the North-South Railroad and the East-West Integration Railroad (FIOL), gradually assuming a freight transportation manager profile.

With the concessions program announced last year by President Dilma Rousseff, the new Valec will purchase all transport capacity of the new lines that will be built or upgraded by the private sector, and then resell it through public bids to market. To avoid investors’ risk perception, the company may receive a 7.5 billion dollars capitalization, as  authorized by Provisional Measure 618

As for the works on federal waterways, such as the construction of locks and the removal of rocks (derrocamento) from river corridor, will be in charge of the Companhia Docas (Dock Company) do Maranhão (CONDOMAR). Since the administration of Port of  Itaqui in the State of Maranhão became a state assignment, it practically lost its functions. For being almost inactive, it was the only Companhia to be  maintained under the Ministry of Transport, after the establishment of the Secretariat of Ports in 2007. Last year Codomar  budget execution was below  16 million dollars,  which illustrates its sluggish  situation.

Codomar may be the embryo of the Empresa Brasileira de Hidrovias (Brazilian Waterway Company) (EBH), but its formation has not yet been conclusively determined. That also depends on the number of works that the Government shall undertake in the segment. There is an ongoing project for the first waterway concession in the country, on the Tocantins River, between Palmas and Belém. Transferring to private sector such activities as the maintenance of riverbeds and removal of rocks of  riverbeds is not discarded.

The restructuring of the Ministry of Transport began to be designed by former Minister Paulo Passos, who left office in April, but its design was maintained and improved by the new incumbent minister, César Borges. Since he took office, the new minister relinquished of appointing people to positions of trust at ministry senior management, including DNIT and Valec.
The only change was implemented in the National Transport Policy Secretariat, which was run since 2007 by engineer Marcelo Perrupato,   a technician respected in the industry. Perrupato resigned and started to work as a consultant. The secretariat is being dehydrated and its main function, which was planning, today is exercised primarily by Empresa de Planejamento e Logística (EPL) a state company led by the economist Bernardo Figueiredo.

Fonte: Valor Econômico Magazine