More than BRL 7.5 million in aid paid to rich people in Paraná

More than 11,600 people in high-income brackets living in the state of Paraná are under investigation for receiving the BRL 600 coronavirus emergency salary, causing a potential loss of BRL 7.5 million to public accounts, according to the Comptroller General’s Office.

The aid, created to support individual entrepreneurs, unemployed workers, low-income people, and workers that lost their income due to Covid-19, was paid to people that own luxury cars and boats, business owners, Brazilians living abroad, and individuals that donated over BRL 10,000 to electoral campaigns in 2018. 

According to the comptroller’s office, 11,678 people received at least one installment of the aid. Thanks to the investigation, the Citizenship Ministry was able to halt further payments. Now, they are investigating whether it was deliberate fraud, automatic inclusion if these individuals were enrolled in the federal register of social programs (CadÚnico), or whether they were enrolled by a third party. Local Paraná comptrollers are evaluating ways to recover the money.

As we reported in this Live Blog on June 26, the federal government was already able to retrieve BRL 42 million related to emergency aid payment fraud.

• #inequality
• #outbreak
• #poverty