Moreirão
- Miguel Fernández
- Jul 3
- 3 min read
Once upon a time there was a “mixed-capital company”, in truth a state-owned company, in a Latin American country, providing water supply services to a large region, in the last century. In this company, some professionals stood out, especially the production director, an engineer named Moreira.
Without belittling the other directors, it was he who, in a certain way, carried the company’s day-to-day operations on his back. His directorate could not fail. If it failed, the city would not take a bath. In truth, the city would stop. Everyone respected him, inside and outside the company, for the time in which he had already assumed this responsibility and handled it, competently.
The hiring of suppliers, including the engineering services that this state-owned company carried out, used the criterion of “lowest-price bidding”, in contests in which the interested parties presented their proposals on a certain date, before all those interested, for the selection of the winner.
Not that the lowest price is the best price, nor the best service, nor the best solution, nor the best products, nor the best interests of the contracting party, nor that there are laws that oblige it, although there are those that facilitate this procedure. Among Latin American bureaucrats, it is the selection criterion that is usually most used, for various reasons that will not be addressed in this text (see *01).
Except for the innocent ones, everyone knows that these bids by this criterion destroy local supplier companies, destroy the quality and durability of what is intended to be acquired. Except for the innocent ones, everyone also knows that, for that very reason, and as a matter of survival, the companies end up talking among themselves to avoid collective suicide.
On a certain occasion, the matter reached Moreira’s ears. Not that he did not know, because he was not innocent, but he became concerned. He needed things to work properly, in the interest of the concessionaire and in the interest of the population. The last time the companies had come to an understanding, criteria prevailed that did not interest the contracting party, such as, for example, the best company in electromechanics ended up doing civil construction and the best in civil construction went to repair pipes in the streets, and the one that understood pipes in the streets the most ended up doing an expansion of the treatment plant. The best supplier of chlorine ended up with aluminum sulfate and the best one for lime ended up with chlorine. It is just that, when the time came to come to an understanding, some “spoilsports” appeared, and they had to draw lots for the distribution of things.
Moreira was strong-willed, wanted to fix the world, had a captivating sincerity, was present on all fronts, and even had the affectionate nickname Moreirão. So, one late afternoon, he called to his meeting room one representative from each company interested in supplying things and providing services to the state concessionaire. One director from each went.
When everyone had arrived, Moreira laid his cards on the table and immediately said:
_ I made the fair budget for each supply, work or project, and we want it this way: so-and-so, who understands more about this, will do this for this much; so-and-so, who has good people in that, will do that for this much, ... etc. and so on
He ended up distributing all the service and purchases among all the companies in the market, from the small ones to the large ones.
General silence, no one believing what was happening. Everyone happy, some more and others less, but it was a fair solution and better than the usual fights.
But, as there is always a spoilsport, the director of one of the companies, Augusto, who thought himself better and/or bigger, complained:
_ It is not fair, if there were bidding I would win some 4 contracts and I am only taking one.
And Moreirão answered out loud, very much in his style:
_ Oh Augusto, you enter the “orgy” and only want to fuck? You have to give too.
Before the general laughter, Augusto shut his mouth and “went off to scratch himself”, as people used to say at the time.
Things worked well in that time when Moreirão exposed himself, did what needed to be done, defended the company he worked for and, by extension, the local suppliers, for the good of all and the general happiness of the nation.
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