Bolsonaro’s millionaire expenses with presidential card amaze Brazil – Latin America – International

More than 21,000 dollars in a modest restaurant, almost 11,000 dollars in a pastry shop the day after his son’s wedding and about 1,700 dollars in ice cream parlors: the expenses of former president Jair Bolsonaro with the presidential credit card amaze Brazil.

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The extracts of the cards of the presidency, corresponding to his four years in office (2019-2022), have been published this week on an official website of the government of his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in power since January 1.

The left-wing president, who has assumed the presidency for the third time, has begun to lift a 100-year-old secrecy imposed by his far-right predecessor on thousands of official documents.

A total of 27.6 million reais (about 5.4 million dollars at current exchange rates) were spent with that card, which was used by 21 members of his team.

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The former president, embroiled in yet another scandal, He defended himself through a message on his Telegram channel.

Bolsonaro said that “in addition to having fewer expenses” than in the Lula (2003-2010) and Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) governments, the corporate credit card “paid for part of the rescue of Brazilians in Wuhan (China)” in the beginning of the pandemic.

The ex-governor published his message accompanied by a comparative table of his expenses with the corporate credit card with those of other governments

If adjustments for inflation are taken into account, Bolsonaro’s spending is almost half from that carried out during Lula’s first term (2003-2007), although that of the leftist leader was mainly related to accommodation for trips abroad.

But this is not the case of Bolsonaro, who did not make foreign relations a priority and who during his tenure boasted on several occasions that he had not spent “not one penny” from the presidential credit card, unlike his predecessors.

Thousands of dollars in gasoline and lodging

The UOL news portal, for example, discovered that 1.2 million reais (about $235,000) were spent in the 28 days of the former president’s official vacation at the end of 2019, 2020, and 2021.

On January 2, 2022, a payment of more than 71,000 reais (almost 14,000 dollars) was made at a gas station in the state of Santa Catarina (south), where Bolsonaro caused a scandal by jet-skiing while terrible floods affected several regions of the country.

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The presidential credit card was also used to pay 1.46 million reais (more than $280,000) over four years at a luxury hotel in Guarujá, a seaside resort near Sao Paulo (southeast).

According to the website of the G1 news site, that hotel hosted members of the presidential team while Bolsonaro was staying at a military complex.

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One hundred million Colombian pesos in a restaurant

The highest expense on food is also the one that raises the most questions: 109,266 reais (about $21,400) ghorned in one go in a modest restaurant in Boa Vista, in the Amazonian state of Roraima (north).

The amount is enough to order more than 2,000 times the most expensive dish in the place: roast chicken with cassava flour, at the modest price of 50 reais (9.8 dollars).

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The presidential credit card was also used to pay more than 362,000 reais ($71,000) over four years at a Rio de Janeiro bakery.

account includes 55,000 reais paid in one go the day after the wedding of Eduardo, Bolsonaro’s third sonand 33,000 reais the eve of a motorcycle procession organized by supporters of the former president through the streets of the city.

In total, 8,600 reais (almost 1,700 dollars) were spent in ice cream parlors, in 62 purchases in five establishments.

Outrage in Brazil

The revelation of this Friday has caused a political and social upheaval of the different sectors, mainly from the left.

“In a country where half the population lives in food insecurity, Bolsonaro felt at ease to spend millions with his corporate card on luxury hotels and sweets at the bakery,” said deputy André Janones on Twitter.

The president of the ruling Workers’ Party (PT), Gleisi Hoffmann, affirmed that the lifting of the secret revealed the “wasteful and strange” expenses of the former president, including 10 accounts of 9,000 reais (about 1,730 dollars) in 10 consecutive days, in the same fast food place.

“Bolsonaro spent fortunes on a single hotel. With the amount he spent on that hotel, he could have paid for his accommodation for eight years in a row,” said elected deputy Guilherme Boulos, leader of the leftist Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL).

Boulos claimed that the former president who called himself a “simple man” turned out to be the “biggest vagrant and spendthrift in the country.”

Santiago Andres Venera Salazar

INTERNATIONAL WRITING