Pestana to 247: 'Citing Tancredo was opportunistic'

Gisele Federicce _247 – Federal deputy Marcus Pestana (PSDB-MG) classified President Dilma Rousseff's speech in the city of São João del Rei, Minas Gerais, during a ceremony announcing the PAC Historic Cities program on Tuesday the 20th, as "electoral opportunism." In her speech, Dilma recalled that Tancredo Neves, grandfather of her future political opponent Aécio Neves, was one of the important figures to remember in the municipality.

For Pestana, president of the PSDB in Minas Gerais, this is another step in the "pre-campaign" of the PT candidate, who, according to him, has also been making a point of declaring herself a native of Minas Gerais, recalling her origins. The parliamentarian reiterated his criticism, as PSDB president Aécio Neves did yesterday, in noteThe program announced by Dilma alongside the Minister of Culture, Marta Suplicy. According to the PSDB party, this is the fifth time the PT government has announced investments for historic cities.

"This is evidence, we're not just talking for the sake of talking," Pestana declared to... 247"The president going to Tancredo's hometown, turning her back on Tancredo's statue, to announce a program for the fifth time...", lamented the congressman, who said he has a "deep relationship" with the historical cities of Minas Gerais and recalled investments that have not been made in the state in recent years, such as the Metro, which did not receive funding, and highways that have not been duplicated or have unpaved sections.

Formal clarification

Marcus Pestana announced that the party will make a formal request to the Ministry of Culture in response to... statements by Marta Suplicy given yesterday to 247The minister considered the party president's statement that the Historic Cities PAC (Growth Acceleration Program) had already been launched several times to be "absurd," and said that the senator had also shown "indifference" and "disregard" for historical heritage during his eight years as governor of Minas Gerais.

"But the PSDB will offer the minister the opportunity to prove that she, the president, and the federal government told the truth and that yesterday's announcement is not just another version of the same old unfulfilled promises, and will file an official request for information with the ministry so that she can present where the resources announced in each of the four previous launches were invested," says a note signed by Pestana, sent to [the media outlet]. 247.

According to him, Marta "entered with her Paulista Avenue gaze" without even realizing the magnitude of what she was saying. The document, according to the congressman, is being prepared by the party and should be officially presented to the Ministry of Culture probably next Tuesday.

Read the full note below: 

Note regarding the speech by the Minister of Culture, Marta Suplicy.

"Minister Marta Suplicy's aggressive response to Senator Aécio Neves and the PSDB confirms two certainties:

The first is that, in fact, the minister is inept with words, a characteristic that Brazil has known since her statement—which offended the entire country—that to endure the long lines at airports, tourists should "relax and enjoy themselves."

The second point concerns the veracity of the accusations made by the PSDB party that, yesterday in Minas Gerais, the federal government and the president made a mockery of the people of Minas Gerais by launching, for the fifth time, the same program called PAC Historic Cities. Launched and relaunched in the last four years, always as if it were a new project, the program has not released a single cent to date. And this is acknowledged by the president of IPHAN herself in an interview given on November 11, 2012.

The minister only needed to inform where the more than R$ 3 billion announced on other occasions were invested, to prove that these are new resources. But, since that's not true, she had nothing to say, resorting to aggression that only served to demonstrate that she knows Minas Gerais as little as the president does.

Helping to familiarize the minister with matters within her portfolio, we inform her that the advances in the area of ​​heritage achieved by the Aécio government in Minas Gerais were recognized by Iphan itself, which even awarded Iepha (the body responsible for heritage in the state) for an initiative during the administration of the politician from the PSDB party.

We would also like to inform you that, through the ICMS Cultural program, a law that encourages municipalities to care for their heritage, R$ 314 million has been transferred to municipalities in Minas Gerais. The State Council for Cultural Heritage has been created. The actions of the InVista, Minas para Sempre, Restoration of Collections, and the Program to Support the Identification and Restitution of Missing Cultural Assets, in partnership with other institutions, are examples of the work carried out in Minas Gerais and which, unfortunately, seems to be unknown to the minister. Added to these initiatives is the recovery of the heritage transformed into the Cultural Circuit of Praça da Liberdade, in Belo Horizonte.

But the PSDB will offer the minister the opportunity to prove that she, the president, and the federal government told the truth and that yesterday's announcement is not just another version of the same old unfulfilled promises, and will file an official request for information with the ministry so that she can present where the resources announced in each of the four previous launches were invested.

As you can see, the use of words is not really the Minister's strong suit."

President of the PSDB-MG, federal deputy Marcus Pestana