Happy Monday! Crunch time for Congress as the lower house has 24 hours to approve Eletrobras privatization bill. Mapping the rise of Evangelical churches in Brazil.
Eletrobras to go private? What is at stake
Brazil’s lower house has until tomorrow to vote on a bill allowing the government to dilute its stake in massive energy company Eletrobras. Failure to do so would see the proposal expire, forcing the government and Congress to begin again from square one. Here is everything you need to know about the process:
Why it matters. The government believes the privatization of Eletrobras could raise up to BRL 60 billion (USD 12 billion), BRL 25.5 billion of which would go directly to the public purse.
- Eletrobras has been marred by corruption and poor management. In a country with a growing demand for energy, it needs massive investment and improved efficiency to avoid it becoming a developmental bottleneck.
Structure. Eletrobras has 12,200 employees and 67 subsidiaries. It operates 108 power stations, over 76,000 kilometers of transmission lines, and generates over 195,000 gigawatts/hour.
Longtime wish. The privatization of Eletrobras has been talked about since the late 1980s. It lay dormant until 2017, when the Michel Temer administration found...