The August 5-21 Olympics and September 7-18 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro will be the first to be held in South America.
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Some of the key Olympic projects depend heavily on the state government. The missed payments complicated the release of a 1 billion-real loan from the state development bank BNDES to finish the Line 4 of the Rio metro system.
The troubled 2016 Summer Olympic Games has acquired a new headache, as the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro has declared a state of financial emergency and is requesting federal funds to ensure public services obligations are fulfilled during the games.
The move further allows the government to skip the bidding process to hire some contractors and loosens minimum spending requirements on mandatory items like education and health care.
Still, Rio officials are adamant that the Olympics will run smoothly.
Interim Governor Francisco Dornelles signed the decree, which authorizes the government to “adopt all necessary emergency measures to ration essential public services in order for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to take place”.
Since late previous year, the state has been forced to delay pension and salary payments and shutter some schools and hospitals, where crucial supplies, including medicines and syringes, are lacking.
Dornelles is aiming “to call the attention of the whole society of Rio to the problems the state has, opening the way for us to take very tough measures”. The governor said that the fall in oil prices have abruptly diminished the state’s revenues.
But the federal budget is in no better shape.
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Police, teachers and other government workers in Rio state have seen paychecks delayed because of the cash crunch. And the government is confronted with double-digit inflation, unemployment at a record 11 percent. A political corruption scandal ousted its president earlier this year, and an outbreak of the Zika virus has some saying the games should be postponed.
