New head of president’s Gov’t Secretariat takes office

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro today (Jul 4) swore in the new head of his Government Secretariat, General Luiz Eduardo Ramos Baptista Oliveira, who is also to serve as the president’s negotiator with Congress.

Bolsonaro said Ramos comes amid deliberations on the overhaul of the country’s pension system. “He steps in at a crucial moment for all of Brazil—the pension system. We have no plan B; this is the plan, plan A. He is also coming to seek solutions to this issue,” the president said during Ramos’s inauguration ceremony.

In his address, the new minister said that, after the invitation to lead the secretariat, many contacted him to remark on how “difficult” and “thorny” the mission ahead of him was going to be, to which he replied it was a privilege to be handed the task.

Until June, the task of acting as negotiator with Congress had been the responsibility of the office of the president’s chief of staff. Bolsonaro moved the job to the Government Secretariat through a preliminary injunction.

Ramos is occupying the post left by General Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz on June 13.