RIO DE JANEIRO, May 24: An important minister in Brazil's interim government has stepped aside over a leaked recording in which he appears to discuss using Dilma Rousseff's impeachment to derail a corruption investigation, reports Al Jazeera.
Romero Juca, planning minister, said on Monday he would step aside from the next day. Although he did not resign, he was not expected to return, the Globo news site reported quoting sources close to Michel Temer, the acting president.
The scandal threatens Temer only 11 days after taking power from Rousseff, whom the Senate suspended as president on May 12 at the start of an impeachment trial on charges of breaking government accounting rules.
Juca, who is Temer's right-hand man, had been due to help lead the team asking Congress to approve urgent measures aimed at pulling Brazil out of recession.
He said that he would return to his seat in the Senate instead.
The Folha newspaper released what it said were recordings of conversations in March between Juca and Sergio Machado, a former oil executive.
The recordings were allegedly made secretly by Machado who, like Juca, is the target of an investigation into massive embezzlement centred on state oil company Petrobras.
In the conversations, Juca is heard calling for a "national pact" that he appears to suggest would stop the investigation, known as Operation Car Wash, in which dozens of top-ranking politicians from a variety of parties, as well as business executives, have been charged or already convicted for involvement in the Petrobras scheme.
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Source: The Financial Express