Lula spent R$ 30 million with international trips until July

President Lula’s expenses with international travel reached R$ 30.7 million up to June, according to official data from the Presidency of the Republic. As a comparison, then-president Jair Bolsonaro spent BRL 37 million (in inflation-adjusted amounts) from January to December 2019 – the first year of his government. The data show expenses with accommodation, per diems, tickets and vehicle rental, but the transparency of the Lula government is opaque.

The biggest expense for Lula and his entourages was with accommodation – BRL 11.2 million. In the case of the president, in luxurious hotels. Car rentals for the presidential entourage cost R$10.4 million. Per diems for advisors and security guards consumed over R$9.1 million. Expenses with Brazilian Air Force (FAB) aircraft are not disclosed, supposedly for safety reasons.

Bolsonaro also spent more on accommodation – BRL 14.5 million. Per diems for the support team cost BRL 12.6 million. The charter of vehicles for the support teams and security guards consumed another R$ 10.2 million.

The data were obtained through the Access to Information Law (LAI), approved in 2011, in the first term of President Dilma Rousseff, to take effect from June 2012. But the Lula government’s response was partial. Only the total amounts were reported, without detailing the expenses in each country visited. In addition, the numbers presented are confusing, with overlapping spreadsheets.

Top spending by country

In the attached documents sent to the blog by the Lula government, a spreadsheet informs Lula’s travel expenses with “lodging and per diems”. The amounts paid are in dollars and euros, depending on each country. The blog made the conversion to reais on the day of the beginning of each trip. The total reached R$ 12.4 million. Expenses with lodging and per diems for Beijing totaled R$ 2 million. For Lisbon and Madrid, the same value. In the mission to Paris, Rome and the Vatican, it was R$ 3.4 million. For London, R$ 1.5 million.

The government also sent an instruction to consult the expenses with “per diems and tickets” of servants of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who are part of the presidential entourage. The data is accessed in the “Travel Panel” of the Ministry of Finance. With the application of filters such as date, agency and destination, it is possible to determine the most expensive trips. For Beijing and Shanghai, daily rates and tickets cost BRL 2.4 million.

For Lisbon and Madrid, R$ 2.1 million. Tickets and per diem to Paris and Rome cost R$ 1.9 million. For London, it was R$ 728 thousand. For Buenos Aires and Montevideo, R$1.2 million, for Washington, R$970,000. But it is not possible to add the values ​​of the two worksheets because one registers expenses with accommodations and per diems, while the other works with per diems and tickets.

opaque transparency

The government sent yet another instruction to consult commitments issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for per diem payments to presidential travel entourages. The calculation is made on the Transparency Portal of the Presidency of the Republic. Following all the steps, the path leads to the “Documents” column, where there are two commitment notes related to the payments of civilian per diems and military per diems.

The commitment for the payment of civil per diems has the value of R$ 4 million, while the commitment related to military per diems amounts to R$ 3.5 million. Opening each individual commitment (there are thousands) it is possible to determine the name of the server, the destination and the value of the per diem abroad. The commitments are already settled (executed).

The blog also received two more tables with expenses related to renting vehicles for land transport on presidential trips in 2023 and 2019. In the 2023 spreadsheet, which records 25 trips, the total expense is US$ 2.15 million – the equivalent of R$ 10.4 million. But the worksheet does not inform the destination or the date of each trip. This prevents the calculation of expenses by country.

In the car rental worksheet in 2019, the total spending on 22 trips reached US$ 2.1 million. The biggest expense was the trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos. US$650,000 – or R$2.45 million – was spent on chartering vehicles for Bolsonaro and his team.

At an event commemorating the 11th anniversary of the Access to Information Law, on May 16, President Lula compared the LAI to an 11-year-old child, “who was raped not long ago and who we are now recovering so that the people Brazilians see this child become an adult”. He claimed that Bolsonaro withheld information during the Covid pandemic and imposed secrecy of up to 100 years. But the transparency of his government is still opaque.