Protesters seek to drive cartels out of Brazil's bus sector It was set to be one of Rio de Janeiro's most glamorous weddings this year. But when the granddaughter of Jacob Barata, the city's bus tycoon, emerged from the ceremony at Rio's Old Cathedral last month she was mobbed by hoards of angry protesters. Military police struggled to hold back demonstrators, some dressed as brides, as they brandished banners accusing Rio's "bus mafia" of corruption. IN Americas Business After mass protests swept across Brazil in June, activists have started to focus on individual politicians and businessmen to put pressure on authorities to improve public services and clean up corruption. While the movement started off as calls for lower bus fares, attention has now turned to the multibillion-dollar bus industry itself - a murky collection of alleged cartels that has been linked to assassinations. Rio this month opened a parliamentary inquiry into its bus concessions, which are the responsibility of municipal governments in Brazil. In São Paulo, the city has suspended a R$46bn ($19bn) tender for 15-year contracts as it audits its concessionaires" financial statements. "The owners of bus companies generally act in cartels by region or by city," says Carlos Zarattini, a federal deputy and São Paulo's former secretary of transport. They have a tacit agreement that once one group is in control of a city no one should come to dispute that . . . it's illegal but so far no one has been able to prove it. He estimates fares could be 20 per cent cheaper in São Paulo if the sector enjoyed fair competition. Mr Barata Filho, who helps run his father's business, denies that it is involved with any corruption or formation of cartels, saying his family controls only about 11 per cent of Rio's bus concessions with stakes in 13 of the sector's 43 companies. The low rate of return in the industry - about 7 per cent - means that only large established companies, which already have their own bus depots, are interested, he says. Otávio Cunha, head of the National Association of Urban Transport, also denies the existence of cartels; bus tariffs are set by the government, he says. The battle for control of Brazil's buses is set to become even more fraught in the run-up to presidential and congressional elections next year, making it harder to execute much-needed infrastructure projects. "The deterioration of the political environment for the administration following widespread protests in June, and the subsequent loss of consumer and business confidence, will make progress on reforms even more difficult in the short term," says Andre Loes, an economist at HSBC in São Paulo. Recent accusations by São Paulo's state government that Siemens and other global companies ran a cartel across the city's metro network between 1990 and 2007 have already made it harder for the federal government to push through plans for a high-speed railway. Siemens has said it is co-operating with the investigation. President Dilma Rousseff suspended the R$38bn tender this month after receiving only one bid from a group led by France's Alstom, which is also under investigation over the alleged cartel. Alstom has said it rigorously complied with local laws and is co-operating with the authorities. Cartels have long existed in Brazil's public transport system, as well as in health services and school lunch programmes, as they require vast sums of government money and involve high barriers to entry, says Rafael Alcadipani, a researcher at Fundação Getulio Vargas, an academic institution. The violence is a reflection of the importance of the [bus] union in the country - any decision taken is highly disputed by members of the union itself, the companies, and the government Nailton Francisco de Souza, Union co-ordinator For many Brazilians, bus companies have been a source of suspicion since at least 2002, when the mayor of Santo Andre in São Paulo state, Celso Daniel, was kidnapped, tortured and killed. Public prosecutors say he was assassinated after uncovering a corruption racket in which bus concessionaires allegedly paid bribes to Brazil's now ruling Workers" party, the PT. But the PT denies the allegation and police say his murder was not politically motivated. Police have recorded 18 assassinations since 1990 that they say were motivated by conflicts related to São Paulo's bus drivers" union - only last month, a shoot-out during an election of union leaders left eight injured. "The violence is a reflection of the importance of the union in the country - any decision taken is highly disputed by members of the union itself, the companies, and the government," says Nailton Francisco de Souza, one of the union's co-ordinators. He says, however, that the number of deaths associated with the union is exaggerated given that some violent acts have been perpetrated by what he calls "outside militants," rather than people directly connected to the union. Constantino de Oliveira, a powerful bus magnate in his 80s whose family founded the airline Gol, has spent periods under house arrest since 2009 following allegations he made a contract for the killing of a community leader and his daughter's ex-husband - claims he has denied. However, Jilmar Tatto, São Paulo's secretary of transport, says the sector is far less violent than when the current concessions were introduced in 2003. "Back then I got four death threats, we used to drive around in bulletproof cars and the mayor had to wear a bulletproof vest," he says. Since suspending the latest tender process in June, São Paulo's city government is considering funding the sector's investment itself and turning the companies into service providers rather than concession-holders, says Mr Tatto. After more than a decade of unexplained killings and political scandals in the sector, however, a new model may not be enough to satisfy the protesters. "The way in which these tender processes are carried out has never been that transparent," says Mr Alcadipani. Furthermore, it's still not clear to what extent the companies make some kind of deal with the government itself.