Maílson da Nóbrega

Upon taking office, Nóbrega said that he would not neglect inflation control, that there would be no economic package or "heroic measures" and that he would try to renegotiate Brazil's external debt with international creditors on terms as favorable as those obtained by Mexico. However, it quickly became apparent that he would not be able to fulfill any of these promises.[6] On February 2, 1988, the then-Senator Fernando Henrique Cardoso in Congress questioned the resumption of external debt payments since the default of 1987, without a definitive agreement signed with creditors.[7] Finally, on August 23, 1988, Brazil reached an agreement with the IMF, for which it would get an injection of US$1.4 billion; of which it has actually received $477 million.[5][8]

Nóbrega had said that his economic policy would be "rice and beans", without "miracle cures", only making occasional adjustments to prevent hyperinflation.[6] However, 1987 ended with a cumulative inflation rate of 415.87%, and it reached 1037.53% at the end of 1988.[9] It became clear that once again the Sarney administration would have to resort to a "heterodox economic package." This package, which was named Plano Verão ("Summer Plan"), was implemented on January 15, 1989.[10]

The economic package known as "Summer Plan" was the fourth and last of the Sarney administration, and was primarily aimed at controlling rising inflation in an election year.[11] For this purpose, a new currency, the cruzado novo—equivalent to 1,000 old cruzados—was created. There was a 17% devaluation of the national currency against the United States dollar, and prices and wages were frozen.[10] Like its predecessors, the Summer Plan proved to be an almost complete failure. Maílson da Nóbrega said that its goals were not met, but that other measures that should be adopted for the plan to succeed were not approved by the Brazilian Congress. Among these measures were the dismissal of civil servants without stability, the closure of public agencies and an extensive program of privatization.[12] These measures were taken later in the neoliberal governments of Fernando Collor de Mello and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, although they have not proven particularly effective in reducing the public deficit.[13][14][15]

Apart from its ineffectualness as a tool to control inflation, it is alleged that the Summer Plan and related "Bresser Plan", 1987, "Collor Plan 1", 1990 and "Collor 2", 1991 caused losses to those with savings accounts, as the inflation adjustment indices were altered. For the Summer Plan, the losses are estimated at 20.37% of revenues in February 1989.[16] However, the National Confederation of Brazilian Financial System challenges the idea that savers were negatively affected, but says that financial institutions did not receive the money not credited to customers' accounts, since the excess liquidity is compulsorily collected by the Central Bank of Brazil.[17] As of 2013, it is expected that the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) will evaluate the case and establish whether there were losses and who will pay for them.[18]

In his autobiography, Além do Feijão com Arroz ("Beyond Rice and Beans"), Maílson da Nobrega reports that his appointment as Finance Minister had the approval of the powerful telecommunications tycoon Roberto Marinho (which Nóbrega compares to William Randolph Hearst, or more precisely, to "Citizen Kane").[26] President Sarney oriented Nóbrega to speak first with "Dr. Roberto" in his office in Brasilia. The conversation, which Nóbrega describes as a "confirmation hearing" was held on the afternoon of January 5, 1988. Marinho appears to have been satisfied with what he heard, because at the return to the ministry, about 18 pm (10 minutes after leaving the office of the Rede Globo), Nóbrega was greeted by his secretary, who had heard in the breaking news of the Jornal Nacional that he had been confirmed as Minister of Finance. He then received a call from Sarney, summoning him to the Planalto Palace to assume office.[27][28][29]

After the inauguration, Nóbrega and Marinho met for lunch, this time in Rio de Janeiro, at the headquarters of TV Globo. Marinho had confided to Nóbrega that he had indicated two others Ministers of Sarney: Antônio Carlos Magalhães, for Communications and Leonidas Pires, for the Army Ministry. According Nóbrega, "I don't know if it was true or just a demonstration of power."[29]

Although it had begun in a cordial manner, the relationship between Marinho and Nóbrega became tense in the following months.[29] The first problem was the cancellation of a government program to promote exports, in which Roberto Marinho wanted to sell one billion dollars in prefabricated houses. The program was canceled, but the interest of Marinho ended up being published by the "Jornal do Brasil", "O Globo"'s (Marinho's family newspaper) main competitor in Rio de Janeiro. Displeased, Roberto Marinho, pressed President Sarney to make Nóbrega to deny the information. Even after Nóbrega refused to give a formal denial, was said in Jornal Nacional, the main news program of TV Globo, that the information had been denied.[29]

With the escalation of hyperinflation, the pressure against Nóbrega increased. He found himself "fired" by the newspaper "O Globo" on the morning of August 4, 1989 ("Inflation overthrows Maílson", said the headline), and the next day the newspaper declared that the President Sarney would choose a new coordinator for the economy.[29] But nothing of this happened, and Nóbrega remained minister until March 18, 1990, when Zélia Cardoso de Mello assumed the Ministry of Finance. According to the magazine "Veja" in its edition #1091 (August 9, 1989), the action to precipitate the fall of Nóbrega was organized in Brasilia by the businessman and lobbyist Jorge Serpa, a Roberto Marinho's proxy.[30] Serpa was the same that in 1988 had tried - unsuccessfully - to mediate the billion dollar agreement in manufactured homes proposed by "Dr. Roberto".[31]

On April 28, 1999, with the scandal Marka/FonteCindam in the spotlight, the news magazine "ISTOÉ" published an editorial, Moralização Já! ("Moralisation Now!"), which criticized the "promiscuous" relationship between the financial market and the public power, evidenced by the fact that monetary authorities went to work as consultants immediately after leaving the government—or vice versa—and Maílson da Nobrega was specifically cited as an example.[32] In consequence, based on the Brazilian press law, Nóbrega filed a lawsuit against ISTOÉ, seeking clarification on the conclusions made in the editorial.[33]

The explanations were printed in edition #1554 of the magazine, dated July 14, 1999. In them, the editor of "ISTOÉ", Domingo Alzugaray clarified that both Maílson da Nobrega and his partner Gustavo Loyola had highlighted the experience in public organs in their own curricula, but there was no suggestion that they had passed inside information to the mentioned banks—so much so that they went bankrupt.[33]