Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential credit card expenses corresponding to his four years in office cause astonishment in Brazil due to the volume of money and how he implemented them.
Extracts from the presidential cards were published this week on an official website of the government of his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in power since January 1.
In them he refers to more than 21,000 dollars in a modest restaurant, almost 11,000 in a pastry shop the day after his son’s wedding and about 1,700 in ice cream parlors.
On January 2, 2022, a payment of more than 71,000 reais (almost $14,000) was made at a gas station in the state of Santa Catarina, where Bolsonaro caused a scandal by jet-skiing while terrible floods affected various regions of the country.
The current left-wing ruler, who took office 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 in the four-year period with that card, which was used by 21 members of his team.
If adjustments for inflation are taken into account, spending is almost half that made 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 administration boasted on several occasions that he had not spent “not one penny” from his presidential credit card, unlike his predecessors.
The local news portal UOL, for example, discovered that 1.2 million reais (about 235,000 dollars) were spent in the 28 days of their official vacations at the end of the years 2019, 2020 and 2021.
On January 2, 2022, a payment of more than 71,000 reais (almost $14,000) was made at a gas station in the state of Santa Catarina, where Bolsonaro caused a scandal by jet-skiing while terrible floods affected several regions of the country.
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 resort near São Paulo.
According to the website of the G1 news site, that hotel hosted members of the presidential team while Bolsonaro stayed at a military complex.
The biggest spending on food is also the one that raises the most questions: 109,266 reais (about $21,400) spent in one go at a restaurant in Boa Vista, in the Amazon state of Roraima.
The biggest expense on food is also the one that raises the most questions: 109,266 reais (about $21,400) spent in one go at a modest restaurant in Boa Vista, in the Amazon state of Roraima.
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).
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.
The bill includes 55,000 reais paid in one lump sum the day after the wedding of Eduardo, Bolsonaro’s third son, and 33,000 on the eve of a motorcycle procession organized by supporters of the former dignitary 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, the AFP news agency reported.
