[July 04, 2011] Brazilian president expresses support for embattled minister Tweet Brasilia, Jul 4, 2011 (EFE via COMTEX) -- President Dilma Rousseff expressed her "confidence" Monday in Brazil's transportation minister, Alfredo Nascimento, who last week temporarily removed four top officials from their posts in his ministry amid complaints they had engaged in corruption. "The government expresses its confidence in the minister ... (who) is responsible for conducting the process of investigating the complaints against the Transportation Ministry," Rousseff said in a statement released after she met with Nascimento. The alleged irregularities within the ministry were brought to light on Saturday by Veja magazine, which published reports about suspicions of fraud in different bidding processes for public works contracts. Nascimento responded to Veja's report the same day and in an official statement announced that: "In the face of the relevance of the account published by the magazine" it was decided "to open an internal investigation to quickly and thoroughly determine the alleged responsibility of top ministry officials in the deeds mentioned by the magazine." The minister determined that, in addition to the internal investigation by the ministry's monitoring entities, the complaints will also be investigated by the Comptroller's Office. "To guarantee the full development of the investigation and the effective verification of the facts ascribed to the directors of the entity, the public servants cited by the report will be removed from their posts as a preventive measure ... until the conclusion of the investigations," the ministry said. The four top officials accused of being part of the corruption network are the ministry's chief of staff, Mauro Barbosa da Silva; the ministry's Cabinet adviser, Luis Tito Bonvini; the general director of the National Transportation Infrastructure Department, or DNIT, Luis Antonio Pagot; and the chief of the state-owned Valec, Jose Francisco das Neves. Nascimento belongs to the pro-government center-right Republic Party, or PR, and Veja reported that several ministry officials established a network to favor firms submitting bids on public works that were much higher than normal. The favored businessmen apparently paid bribes to PR leaders for the contracts worth millions. Congressman Valdemar Costa Neto, the president of the PR, released an official statement of his own answering Veja and stating that the party, as a member of the governing coalition, conducts its activities "transparently" and is not involved in "any irregularities." The national leadership of the PR "supports the decision to conduct an investigation," and is convinced that "in the shortest time possible the innocence of the ... leaders (who were removed from their posts) will be proven," Costa Neto said. EFE ed/bp [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]