President of the TCU advocates planning and legal certainty in the port sector

Graduated in Medicine and Law, Vital do Rêgo was a city councilor, state and federal deputy, and senator; in 2014, he took office as a minister of the TCU (Dimmy Falcão/Special for A Tribuna)

The actions of the Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU) should contribute to legal certainty and to overcoming the main bottlenecks in the Brazilian port sector. This is the position defended by the president of the TCU, minister Vital do Rêgo Filho. He emphasizes the need for better planning, efficient execution, and coordinated work among different stakeholders. Vital do Rêgo spoke on the subject during the Summit TCU, promoted by Grupo Tribuna on the 10th, at the Court’s headquarters in Brasília.

When addressing the current scenario, the minister highlighted that the country still faces relevant structural problems, despite progress observed in recent years. He pointed out the need to improve land and waterway access to ports, expand berthing and cargo-handling infrastructure, and upgrade obsolete infrastructure to gain efficiency.

“It is also necessary to improve the performance of our dock companies, increase agility in administrative processes, promote energy transition, integrate different transport modes, enhance the resilience of our infrastructure to the impacts of climate change, among many other challenges”, he stated.

According to him, the response to this set of demands necessarily involves integrated action. “To deal with all this, we increasingly need to plan and execute better and act together. Public entities, the private sector, and organized civil society.”

In this context, Vital do Rêgo highlighted the role of the TCU in creating a more stable environment for investments. “In our actions, we seek to promote legal certainty so that the sector has an increasing appetite to invest.”

The minister also noted that the Court has been undergoing an institutional transformation, moving away from a primarily punitive approach to adopting a more guiding profile. “Today, the TCU is more pedagogical than sanctioning”, he said. “This is very positive for me; it represents a convergence of all these interests of Brazilian men and women, in which, based on this economic agenda, we will achieve accelerated development in Brazil.”

Vital do Rêgo also reinforced that the Court’s actions should ultimately focus on citizens. “We advocate that governments must deliver results and generate value for citizens. In this sense, it is necessary to place the citizen at the center of this Court’s actions.”

He acknowledged that, in the port sector, this relationship is not always direct, but emphasized the concrete effects of investments. “It is not always easy to associate our actions with their impact on citizens. But, as we know, investments in infrastructure lead to economic development and increase people’s well-being.”

Vital do Rêgo added that the sector plays a relevant role in job and income generation. “The port sector represents a thriving sector that generates jobs and income for the Brazilian population.”

Another point highlighted was the expansion of institutional dialogue. According to him, the TCU has sought to listen not only to society but also to economic agents. “We have sought to listen even more to people regarding the work we truly need to carry out to address the challenges faced by the Brazilian population. But this listening is not only directed at citizens as recipients of public functions, but also at representative entities of various sectoral economic agents.”

The minister emphasized that the role of the TCU goes beyond traditional oversight. “It means not only pointing out flaws or irregularities, but also contributing to the development of solutions based on collective intelligence.”

He concluded by highlighting the strategic importance of ports for the country. “More efficient ports mean a more competitive Brazil, more integrated with the world, and with more opportunities for the population.”