The State of Rio de Janeiro is hosting more than just the Olympics. It also hosts a tangible portion of Brazil’s unemployed. In fact, disproportionate benefits for multinationals are leaving Brazil’s most vulnerable in a crisis set to long outlive the Olympic flame.
The cost of living has soared, public services struggle, and corruption is believed to be increasingly widespread. In this context, workers, women, the poor, black youth and LGBTs become increasingly subject to wage cuts, violence and discrimination. Much noise regarding this crisis has circulated across world news, but how precisely does the Olympics influence Brazil’s already state of crisis?
No secret that Rio 2016 Olympics is being held amid greater political and economic crisis. And yet national and international companies continue to use the Olympic mega event for high profits regardless of more negative local implications.
Therefore, the Rio 2016 Olympic Games are unclean not just environmentally, but also socio-economically and politically.
Why Legacy isn’t Always a Positive
The number of unemployed in RJ is around 700,000 people and is now the highest unemployment rate in the country. Photo (c) T13 2016
Multinational analysts can agree that this year’s “Olympic legacy” will cost dearly for workers and the people. According to the Olympic Public Authority (APO), the costs of the Rio Olympics 2016 increased by more than U$S 124 million, and now a total of approximately U$S 12 billion. Such greatly increases the debt for Rio de Janeiro, which the Committee on Economic Affairs of the Federal Senate (CAE) already ranks the most indebted nationwide.
The State of Rio de Janeiro is also undergoing a public calamity with the construction of Metro Line 4 for about U $ S 5.9 billion, well above the initial budget of U $ S 273 billion reported by the State Department of Transportation.
Most of the investments in works and stadiums originated from public coffers. In addition, fiscal “desoneración” approved by the government, enterprises and service providers authorized to transmit the events in the country and abroad stations, get high profits. This represented a huge tax waiver (exemption from tax expenditures).
According to the Court of Auditors of the State of RJ, the multi-million tax exemptions, for example, by the state government in the past six years, would be sufficient to guarantee payment for five years of salaries to active servers and pensioners, including the payment of bonuses.
The Report of TCE-RJ revealed that between 2008 and 2013, the state government stopped collecting about U$S 43 billion, especially in ICMS (Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services).
Retrospective Investment Alternatives
Mega-events like the Olympics loot public coffers. Photo (c) El Pais 2016
In another life, public resources spent by the Olympic Games could have guaranteed payment of the servers, resolve the crisis by passing health and public education in RJ or even attack unemployment.
According to the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), the number of unemployed in RJ is around 700,000 people and is now the highest unemployment rate in the country. The unemployment rate increased statewide last year and reached the highest rate in five years.
The rate of workers employed, just over half (53.3%) remained below the national average.
Athens, Greece, which hosted the Olympics in 2004, is an example of the legacy of such mega-events. After more than a decade, the Greek stadiums and structures have become completely abandoned in the middle of a country in crisis.
People Problems
Photo (c) La Informacion 2016
Mega-events like the Olympics loot public coffers. The Federal Police Operation Delta found that the construction company responsible for the reform of the Maracana (emblematic Brazilian football stadium) for the 2014 World Cup, billed almost U$S 3.4 billion only with public budgets - 96% of all turnover of the company - between 2007 and 2012.
According to the opposition complaint, the Delta was part of a criminal organization that diverted U$S 115 million of public money to pay bribes being known the close relations of the former governor of Rio de Janeiro, Sérgio Cabral, with businessman Fernando Cavendish, owner of the contractor.
To secure these lucrative businesses, authorities infamously removed communities, surrounded favelas on the pretext of environmental protection. The Pacification Police (UPP) alone have been responsible for a true carnage of poor and black population, especially the younger ones.
Most Brazilians (62%) support the holding of new elections. Photo (c) Pro Da Vinci 2014
Mega-events also create a state of emergency laws and decrees created especially for the 2014 World Cup and the Rio 2016 Olympics (Olympic Law Act - Law No. 12,035 / 2009.) Both were sanctioned by Dilma Rousseff, but passed due to pressure from abroad. Such laws restricts many rights, such as freedom of speech and expression in official forums for the Games. Some have argued that such represents an affront to the constitutional right of freedom of expression that must be guaranteed in any situation, and that entities cannot be above the law or prevent the public space is used for demonstrations of any kind.
For all that, according to Datafolha research, approximately 63% of Brazilians believe that the 2016 Rio Olympics may very well bring more harm than good.
Meanwhile, opposition dissatisfaction with the governments of Dilma as Temer escalate. Not in vain, according to the same Institute, most Brazilians (62%) support the holding of new elections.
