But Mascarenhas is not interested in popularity. His passion for the last four years has been to turn his agency into a model of efficiency, and he and his staff have made considerable progress. "In 1991, everything at the secretariat was run manually--we had no information technology to speak of. To give you an example, it would take 60 days for us to learn what our revenues had been during a particular month. Something as simple as knowing who paid their taxes and who didn't--we didn't know that."

Today, thanks to a top-to-bottom overhaul that involved extensive staff training, computer systems installation and software development, things are considerably better: "Now we know exactly what our collections are--we know it on the same day--and we know who has paid and who hasn't. Taxpayers know that we are following them closely, on a day-to-day basis, so we have been able to reduce our evasion rates and raise our collection efficiency."

The most tangible evidence of increased efficiency, according to Mascarenhas, is that for the last few years Bahia's tax collections have grown at a faster rate than the state's GDP. But has the average person noticed the reforms? Perhaps not, says Mascarenhas. "But people have noticed that the state is now more financially sound, that public employees are paid on time, and that state accounts are up-to-date."

And that's good enough for him.