Bolsonaro unveils another ministerial reshuffle

President Jair Bolsonaro today (Jul. 22) confirmed that Senator Ciro Nogueira of the pro-Bolsonaro Progressista party, will serve as the president’s chief of staff as part of a cabinet reshuffle that should take place next week. “It’s practically settled. We’ll bring a senator here to the office of the chief of staff who can keep a better dialog with the Brazilian parliament,” Bolsonaro said during an interview with the a radio from South Brazil.

“It should be [Ciro Nogueira]. I talked to him and he said yes. He’s in his break, coming to Brasília on Monday. I’ll talk to him, we’ll make the arrangements. And on we go. It’s someone I’ve known for a long time; he came to the lower house in 95, I went there in 91,” he pointed out.

Bolsonaro also confirmed the recreation of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, which had been grouped with other four ministries early in his administration under the Ministry of the Economy, led by Minister Paulo Guedes. The current head of the Secretariat General, Onyx Lorenzoni, will take the helm of the new ministry, and the current chief of staff, Luiz Eduardo Ramos, will take his office at the Secretariat General.

The president said that Paulo Guedes agreed with the division of the Ministry of the Economy. “It relieves Paulo Guedes of some of the pressure and leaves Onyx free to deal with this crucial issue [labor],” he noted.

The number of ministries will be brought back to the total 23, he said. In February this year, after the country’s Central Bank’s autonomy was approved, the authority lost its ministry states and was turned into an autonomous federal agency.

In March this year, the president had already carried out a ministerial reshuffle, with changes in six ministries: the Office of the President’s Chief of Staff and the Government Secretariat, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the Foreign Ministry, and the Ministry of Defense, in addition to the Office of the Attorney-General (AGU).