BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, moving quickly to nip a new scandal in the bud, ordered the dismissal yesterday of government officials allegedly involved in a bribery ring, including the country’s deputy attorney general.
Federal police raided government offices in Brasilia and Sao Paulo on Friday and arrested six people for running an influence peddling ring that sold government approvals to businessmen in return for bribes.
Among those under investigation are the former personal secretary of ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Rosemary de Noronha, who has headed the regional office of the presidency in Sao Paulo since 2005.
The bribery scandal erupted on the heels of Brazil’s biggest political corruption trial that sentenced some of Lula’s closest aides to prison terms for buying support in Congress for his minority Workers’ Party government after taking office in 2003.
Rousseff, Lula’s chosen successor, was not affected by the vote-buying scandal and she has built on his popularity by gaining a reputation for not tolerating corruption. But the ruling Workers’ Party was rocked by the scandal which tarnished Lula’s legacy even though he was not implicated.
The new corruption case could further hurt the standing of Lula, who remains Brazil’s most influential politician.
Friday’s arrests included two brothers who were recommended for positions in the federal government by Lula’s former secretary, Noronha: Paulo Rodrigues Vieira, director of the National Water Agency and Rubens Carlos Vieira, director for airport infrastructure at Brazil’s Civil Aviation Agency.
