Interim President Michel Temer's will press ahead with ambitious plans to balance the budget, reform pensions and draw private money into the energy sector despite the loss of two ministers to a corruption scandal, his chief of staff said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Presidential chief of staff Eliseu Padilha said in an interview the government enjoys a solid two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress to push through legislation needed to plug a record deficit inherited 20 days ago from suspended President Dilma Rousseff. Padilha said the Temer government is very confident the Senate will vote to convict Rousseff for breaking budget laws in an impeachment trial, and it hopes this will happen as quickly as possible to remove any doubt about Temer's legitimacy. "The government will then have more political authority to act," Padilha said. He hoped the vote could come as soon as the end of July, before Brazil's holds the Olympic Games in August. "I am not worried about the impeachment vote, but we have to work hard to make sure the economy starts to grow again, which appears to be the case," Padilha said. The Temer plan to revive the economy includes a ceiling on public spending, a reduced role for the state and more room for private investment. Latin America's largest economy shrank for a fifth straight quarter in early 2016 as political turmoil and the sweeping corruption scandal centered on Petrobras weighed on activity. Gross domestic product fell 5.4 percent from a year earlier and unemployment has hit 11.2 percent.
