Covid-19 tests were donated, but the Brazilian government transferred 1.14 million euros to the First Lady’s program – News

The newspaper had access to documents from Marfrig, one of the largest beef producers in Brazil, which last March announced the donation of 7.5 million reais to the Ministry of Health for the purchase of 100,000 rapid tests for the new coronavirus, in the time when the country was short of material and was one of the least testing its population.

However, although the executive guaranteed that the money would be used specifically to buy tests to detect the virus, the situation changed after the company transferred the money.

According to Marfrig, he told the newspaper, when the amount donated was already in the possession of the Brazilian Government, chaired by Jair Bolsonaro, the Ministry of Civil Affairs consulted the company on the possibility of using the money in other actions to combat the pandemic.

The company says it was then consulted “on the possibility of allocating the donated money not for the purchase of tests by the Ministry of Health, but for other actions to combat the socioeconomic effects of the covid-19 pandemic, specifically the aid to small business of vulnerable people “.

“As the action was directly linked to mitigating the damage caused by the pandemic, Marfrig agreed with the new destination of the donated resources”, admitted the company.

The funds were then allocated to the Solidarity Collection project, linked to the Pátria Voluntária, by Michelle Bolsonaro.

According to Folha de S.Paulo, the program led by the first lady of Brazil transferred the money from the Solidarity Collection, without a call for competition, to evangelical missionary institutions allied with the Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights, Damares Alves, for the purchase and distribution of basic food baskets (shopping baskets with food and hygiene products).

According to the Casa Civil, the money was used to purchase and distribute food baskets to more families more vulnerable to the pandemic.

The 7.5 million reais donated by Marfrig represent almost 70% of the total collected by the Voluntary Fatherland program so far: 10.9 million reais (1.65 million euros), of which 4.3 million reais (650 euros) thousand euros) have been applied so far without a public notice.

Created in July last year, the program led by Michelle Bolsonaro aims to encourage the practice of volunteering and stimulate the growth of nonprofit organizations, raising money from private institutions and transferring it to social organizations.

The program in question has already consumed around nine million reais (1.37 million euros) from public coffers in advertising paid for by the Presidency’s Secretariat for Social Communication.

Brazil is the Portuguese-speaking country most affected by the pandemic and one of the hardest hit in the world, when counting the second number of deaths (more than 4.8 million cases and 143,952 deaths), after the United States.

The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than one million deaths and more than 34 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report made by the French agency AFP.

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