MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fifth cabinet minister drops out from Brazilian cabinet on corruption allegations

Ex-Tourism minister Pedro Novais allegedly had the habit of paying for his domestic staff with government funds

Brazil's Tourism minister resigned late Wednesday amid a long-brewing corruption scandal, marking the fifth cabinet-level official to step down from President Dilma Rousseff's nine-month-old government since June.

Following a series of allegations that have engulfed the ministry for weeks, Pedro Novais succumbed after Folha de Sao Paulo reported this week that he used public funds, in a previous government post, for personal uses. The allegations come weeks after Brazil's federal police arrested 36 tourism ministry officials, including Mr. Novais' chief deputy, Federico Silva da Costa in a sting probing graft of ministry funds.

According to Folha de Sao Paulo, Novais wife Maria Helena de Melo has a personal chauffeur at her service 24 hours that belongs to the payroll of the Congress Lower House.

Earlier in the week the same Sao Paulo daily published that Novais, from 2003 to 2010, paid domestic staff at his home with congressional funds, while he was a member of the Lower House for PMDB the ruling coalition’s senior partner.

The resignation comes on the heels of a spate of other recent departures that included Ms. Rousseff´s chief of staff and her defense, transportation, and agriculture ministers. In each case except for that of the defense minister, the ousters were the result of corruption scandals.

Though none of the officials have been formally charged with any crimes, the scandals have reminded Brazilians that despite recent economic gains, corruption remains a significant obstacle to overall progress.

Some allies of Ms. Rousseff have applauded the departures as a signal that her government will tolerate less corruption than leaders have in the past. Critics, however, believe she has merely reacted to scandals that wouldn't have come to light had it not been for the local media.

In several instances, they point out, Ms. Rousseff has publicly backed the beleaguered officials even as the scandals ballooned, deciding to ouster the officials only after the accusations have rendered them too weak to perform their duties effectively.

The ministers that have been forced to resign based on corruption allegations are former cabinet chief Antonio Palocci; Transport minister Alfredo Nascimento; Wagner Rossi, Agriculture and Nelson Jobim from Defence. Jobim lost his job for describing his fellow cabinet members as incompetent. “I’m surrounded by a bunch of idiots, and the new cabinet chief is a weakling that doesn’t know her way around Brasilia”.