Brazil minister denies favoritism in Telebras sale
Reuters, Monday, November 16, 1998 at 11:07
BRASILIA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Brazil's communications
minister on Monday denied charges in the media that the
government favored certain investors in the privatization of
telecommunications holding Telebras (SAO:RCTB40) last July.
"In order to stop any doubts from hovering over the
legitimacy of the Telebras sale, the communications minister is
voluntarily at the disposal of Congress to make clarifications
where needed," Minister Luiz Carlos Mendonca de Barros said in
a statement.
The weekly magazine Veja last weekend published excerpts of
a transcript of illegally taped conversations between Mendonca
de Barros and Andre Lara Resende, president of the
privatization coordinator National Development Bank (BNDES),
before the Telebras auction.
The magazine said the tapes "make clear the intentions of
Mendonca de Barros and Andre Lara to help Opportunity, a Rio de
Janeiro investment bank."
Veja said Mendonca de Barros and Lara Resende discussed
ways to weaken the bidding position of Telemar, a consortium of
Brazilian companies, so Opportunity could have a better shot at
winning the Tele Norte Leste fixed line company.
However, Telemar ended up winning the Tele Norte Leste
auction with a premium of 1 percent over the minimum bid price.
Opportunity could not bid for Telemar in the end because it had
won a stake in the previous auction of another fixed-line
company, Tele Centro Sul.
Mendonca de Barros said the Veja article "induces the
reader to consider illegitimate" his work and that of the BNDES
on the eve of the Telebras sale by reproducing only part of the
conversations.
"The dialogues divulged by Veja represent only a partial
reconstruction of the phone calls taped at the BNDES and do not
include contacts with other consortia interested in the auction
which would prove no wrongdoing by the BNDES," the statement
said.
Veja said it pulled the excerpts from two 90-minute tapes
government security officials turned over to the police for the
criminal investigation into the phone tapping at the BNDES. It
was not clear who tapped the phones.
Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service |
