Moreira Franco denies asking Odebrecht for money for the PMDB.

BRASILIA (Reuters) - The Secretary of the Investment Partnerships Program, Moreira Franco, denied this Friday that he had requested funds from Odebrecht Transport for the PMDB party in exchange for favors, as the company's president allegedly stated in his plea bargain testimony.

According to a report published on the website of the newspaper O Globo this Friday, the president of Odebrecht Transport, Paulo Cesena, said in a plea bargain that payments were made to Moreira Franco and the current Minister of the Civil House, Eliseu Padilha, in exchange for Odebrecht Transport's interests in the Civil Aviation Secretariat.

"If Paulo Cesena, in his testimony, stated that he passed money to the PMDB at my request, he is lying," Moreira Franco said in a statement sent to Reuters.

"I never spoke to him about party matters, nor did I ever handle the PMDB's finances," he said.

Moreira Franco and Eliseu Padilha, close associates of President Michel Temer, headed the Civil Aviation Secretariat during the administration of former President Dilma Rousseff.

Minister Eliseu Padilha's press office did not respond to requests for comment.

The Odebrecht group signed a leniency agreement with prosecutors in the Lava Jato operation on Thursday and agreed to pay a fine of 6,7 billion reais. The leniency agreement paved the way for 77 executives and employees of the group to sign plea bargain agreements.

The testimony of Odebrecht, the largest construction company in Latin America, has been cited as one of the most anticipated in the Lava Jato investigation and the one with the greatest potential to cause even greater upheavals in the political landscape.

In a document titled "Sorry, Odebrecht was wrong," released on Thursday, the group admitted to engaging in "improper" business practices. 

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle)