Presidential Chief of Staff José Dirceu has launched a debate on the role and activities of the regulatory agencies set up as part of the Cardoso Administration?s privatization policy from the mid-1990s on. Anatel was the first, and until recently has probably been the most visible.. According to Deputy Walter Pinheiro (PT, Bahia), the debate?s only just beginning. It centers on conflict between regulators and the ministries, which in the PT?s opinion ought to be the formulators of government policy. An initial meeting to discuss the issue was held on Thursday, February 27. Dep. Pinheiro says the Government wants to establish limits to the regulators? powers, arguing that under the Cardoso Administration ministers relinquished policymaking powers and gave the agencies room to act on their own. According to Dep. Pinheiro, who attended the Feb. 27 meeting, Mr Dirceu aims to find a way of taking these powers back from the regulators. ?Actually we began with a diagnosis,? he says. ?Representatives of the mining and energy, communications, justice and defense ministries were at the meeting, which was chaired by the presidential chief of staff.? No regulatory agency should be in charge of deciding how to foster competition among service providers, for example, he argues. That?s a function of policymakers in the Executive, whose overall approach is in turn determined by the president. In Dep. Pinheiro?s view, the job of a regulator is simply to make sure companies operating in a specific industry comply with the law. It?s legitimate for a regulator to be pro-active in investigating consumer complaints and averting recurrence of any infringements detected. ?But there?s no point in applying monetary penalties after a company has broken the law. No amount of money can compensate for real injury to consumers and society as a whole,? he says.
The meeting wasn?t attended by any ministers. The only people there aside from members of the Executive were Deps. Pinheiro and Fernando Ferro (PT, Paraíba). The working group scheduled the next two meetings for March 13 and 20. Dep. Pinheiro says the regulators will be invited to defend themselves at the appropriate time. ?If we have to change the law in order to change the way the agencies operate, we?ll propose that, but it?s early days for a decision,? he notes.
Paradox
Although the Government says it?s looking for ways to reduce regulators? policymaking powers, it also says it wants to make regulation of the financial market more autonomous. For Dep. Pinheiro, however, the discussion now beginning on the role of regulatory agencies in general and the problems created by what this Government sees as their excessive independence under its predecessor is positive because it will direct President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva?s attention to what he calls the ?paradox? of calling for Central Bank independence.
