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The secret spending on corporate cards of the Presidency of the Republic in early 2020 is already the highest in the last eight years. The increase in expenses was revealed by the newspaper “O Estado de S.Paulo” over the weekend, and the data was confirmed by TV Globo on Tuesday (12).
Presidency cards are used, for example, to pay expenses related to the president and his family. Expenses include national and international travel, services and provision of official vehicles that serve the President, and routine expenses at the Palácio da Alvorada, such as food, drinks and receptions.
Single From January to March of this year, the values totaled R $ 6.2 million. (R $ 6,214,967.31), more than double the same period last year. In From January to March 2019, spending on the Presidency’s corporate card was R $ 2.5 million (R $ 2,513,286.42).
The data refers to the Secretariat of Administration of the Presidency, the Office of Institutional Security and the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (Abin). They are disclosed only in full value, without detailing who spent and what was purchased.
The General Secretariat of the Presidency informed, by means of a note, that the expenses with the official residence are lower than the averages of previous years and attributed the expenses to the national and international travel of the President. TV Globo requested detailed data, but received no response until around 2:50 p.m.
Card used to repatriate Brazilians
On Monday (11), President Jair Bolsonaro published a message on social networks to justify the expense. According to the publication, three planes linked to the Presidency were sent to Wuhan, China, where the first cases of the new coronavirus began to spread, to search for the isolated Brazilians.
Bolsonaro said that the cost, paid with a corporate card, was R $ 740,000. The Ministry of Defense confirmed that all the expenses of the operation that it brought to the Brazilians from Wuhan were made with a corporate card from the Planalto Palace. The expenditure on returnees in Brazil was borne by the Ministry of Defense.
Also according to the president’s publication, contrary to what was reported, excluding extraordinary expenses, the expense on corporate cards remains below the average of previous years.
However, even after discounting the expenses for the repatriation of Brazilians who were in China, 2020 had the highest expense on corporate cards in the first three months of the year since at least 2013 – total of R $ 5.4 million.
According to the oldest data available on the Transparency Portal of the Federal Government, the highest value for this period so far was 2014, in the government of former President Dilma Rousseff. That year, it was R $ 4.7 million (R $ 4,765,802.69), in amounts adjusted for inflation.
In Bolsonaro’s government, Abin’s spending on corporate cards also grew a lot. From January to March last year, it was R $ 750 thousand. In 2020, in the same period, there was more than R $ 2.5 million, the highest value since at least 2013.
Bolsonaro promised to reveal expenses
President Jair Bolsonaro has always adopted a critical discourse on excessive spending on corporate cards and has mainly condemned the lack of transparency in accountability for the use of public money. Last year, he said he would publicly disclose detailed information about personal expenses on his corporate cards.
“Are we going to make a story tomorrow? I will open the secret of my card. You don’t have to break the secret. I will open the secret of my card. To find out how much I spent from January to the end of July. Okay, push? Bolsonaro stated during a live broadcast on a social network in August 2019.
For the executive director of Transparency International, Bruno Brandão, the data should not be secret, since in most democratic countries the expenses of the president of the republic are much more transparent.
The detailed disclosure, however, was not made. The government’s argument is that the disclosure of the information would jeopardize the safety of the President and his family.
“This often represents an example for the entire public administration, that the commitment to transparency in public spending must come from the top down. Of course, there are some elements that can be related to expenses that involve security risks, but specifically these elements can be treated in a special way with some kind of control. But generally speaking, the rule in the civilized world is transparency in presidential spending, Brandão said.
