Richa says he will resend the "mega-package" to the Assembly.

Paraná 247, with Esmael's Blog - Governor Beto Richa (PSDB), confident of an "agreement" with the APP-Sindicato, emerged yesterday (25) from his hiding place, where he had been for two weeks, to give interviews to TV Globo and the newspaper Gazeta do Povo, both vehicles of the RPC group. The head of the Paraná executive was "missing" while a general strike of public servants shook Paraná. To reporters Euclides Lucas Garcia and Rogerio Waldrigues Galindo, from Gazeta, the tucano made a kind of mea culpa for the unsuccessful tractor-plot in the Assembly, but will insist on the confiscation of R$ 8 billion from Paraná Previdência, the pension fund of the servants, to plug the hole in the government's coffers (click here).

Asked when the project would return to the Assembly, Richa said, "We are in talks, we will exhaust all avenues of dialogue, and ensure that it is indeed the best proposal before resubmitting it." "But I believe that in March we will have concluded all discussions and presented the best proposal that provides complete security for retirees," he added.

Richa denies that the measure will harm retirees. "What was said maliciously and irresponsibly by political opponents is that the government wanted to appropriate the fund to pay debts. That was never the intention; in fact, the bill states that the resources are exclusively for the payment of benefits to retirees," he said.

The head of the Paraná state government said he has "the humility to acknowledge that we made these mistakes." "And dialogue has always been my strength – transparency, democracy, exhaustive dialogue with all sectors involved. And what surprised society was the speed with which the projects were presented. I confess that this was probably the biggest mistake, causing confusion and complaints, even rightfully so, from segments of society," he added.

Deputy Tadeu Veneri (PT), leader of the opposition in the Assembly, yesterday accused the government of making educators the "scapegoats," where the central objective of the "package of evils" was only one: to get their hands on the R$ 8 billion in pension savings of civil servants.

Cornered, Beto Richa is considering registering two more promises in a notary's office, as he did in his election campaigns: 1) that he will not use the fund's money to pay debts; 2) that he will pay the arrears to educators and public servants on April 1st.

Meanwhile, according to the APP-Sindicato union, in an official statement, "the strike and the struggle continue!". Other public service categories, such as Detran (traffic department), Justice and Agriculture, universities, and truck drivers are fighting against the... most expensive toll in the worldFor example, they also remain paralyzed.