BRASÍLIA: Brazil's interim president Michel Temer lost the third cabinet member of his month-old administration to a corruption scandal when his tourism minister resigned Thursday after being accused of taking bribes.
Tourism minister Henrique Eduardo Alves announced his resignation after a key witness accused him of accepting 1.5 million reals (around $445,000) diverted from state oil company Petrobras.
Alves, a member of Temer's center-right PMDB party, said in an open letter he was stepping down to avoid "creating problems for the government."
He joins former transparency minister Fabiano Silveira and former planning minister Romero Juca, who were both forced to resign over leaked phone recordings linked to the scandal.
Temer and Alves were among some 20 politicians named in the latest batch of allegations by Sergio Machado, the former chief executive of Petrobras subsidiary Transpetro.
Machado said in a plea deal with prosecutors that both men asked him for money from an illegal kickbacks scheme that diverted some $2 billion from the national oil giant.
Machado said Temer asked him for about $430,000 to fund an ally's campaign for mayor of Sao Paulo, according to documents published Wednesday.
An irate Temer took to national television Thursday to deny the allegation.
He branded the allegations "frivolous, lying and criminal."
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