Just ask to leave, Pagot.
Even knowing he would be dismissed, the director-general of DNIT insists on not resigning, embarrassing President Dilma Rousseff; he still has defenders in the government, such as Minister Gilberto Carvalho; a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry is imminent.
247 – President Dilma Rousseff has already decided: Luiz Antônio Pagot will not remain as director-general of the Department of Transportation Infrastructure (DNIT) after his 30-day vacation ends. Like the rest of Brazil, Pagot already knows he will not stay in the position. Even so, he is not resigning. On Tuesday, he said he will wait until Thursday for a decision from the president. The confident Pagot still has the support of the Republican Party (PR) caucus, ministers linked to former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and even the vice-president, Michel Temer, and the Secretary-General of the Presidency, Gilberto Carvalho, all in favor of his remaining. Could it be that the head of DNIT has managed to make so many friends in the government that he is the only one spared in the general purge of the Transportation Ministry?
President Dilma Rousseff's intention to dismiss Pagot had been signaled for days, and only now has it been confirmed more emphatically by the Minister of Institutional Relations, Ideli Salvatti. "Everything indicates yes, even because of the repeated times she (Dilma) has behaved this way," confirmed the minister. But the president's decision displeases many within the government. Dilma will have to confront everyone to remove Senator Blairo Maggi's (PR-MT) nominee from the DNIT leadership and submit to some political fallout if she wants to remain in good standing with the Brazilian population, which awaits actions from the Planalto Palace to moralize the administration of the much-maligned Ministry of Transport.
Maggi even threw in the towel this Tuesday, admitting that Pagot is leaving DNIT, and seemed resigned to the situation, but the way the Ministry's top officials were ousted left resentment within the PR party and shook the relationship between the government's base in the Chamber of Deputies and the government. After dismissing four at once on the day that an article in Veja magazine triggered the crisis in the Ministry of Transport, the president dismissed one by one the appointees of federal deputy Valdemar Costa Neto (PR-SP) in the Ministry, in a move that culminated in the dismissal of six employees from the Ministry and DNIT this Tuesday.
Only Pagot remains, who is on forced leave, suggested by the Planalto Palace itself, given the initial resistance of former minister and senator Alfredo Nascimento (PR-AM) to removing the director-general of DNIT from the Ministry's plans. If Dilma has already made the decision, it is necessary to communicate it soon, so as not to risk facing a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI) on Transportation and seeing her government further damaged. According to the opposition, only four signatures are missing (out of the 27 needed) to establish the CPI. Removing Pagot from the Ministry in the coming days will not erase the corruption allegations, but it will confirm the president's commitment to bringing order to the Ministry, something that could weaken the opposition's arguments.