Rousseff’s Chief Aide says there is misconception about World Cup

Brazil’s Minister of Secretariat-General Gilberto Carvalho told Agência Brasil on Thursday (Apr. 3) that distrusting the preparation for the World Cup and failing to recognize its importance for the country arise from  lack of information and the misconceptions that circulate in society.

“I think the real problem is lack of complete information. For instance, this idea that it was all [a product of] corruption – it’s not true. The Office of the Comptroller-General did a painstaking job of monitoring the construction of the stadiums. Were there corruption issues at a few points? Yes, there were, but they were corrected immediately,” the minister said.

Carvalho spoke in Manaus during a series of debates called Government-Civil Society Dialogues: 2014 World Cup, aimed at explaining to the population the initiatives launched for the World Cup and make measures more transparent. “As I left Manaus,” he said, “I felt very excited about this tour we’re making through 12 cities.”

“I’m sure people will get more and more excited as they become aware of the dimension of this World Cup – the importance for Brazil of being seen by the whole world for a month,” Carvalho argued.

Carvalho said he was surprised by the meeting with social leaders in Manaus, which gathered over 400 people: “[Social] movements have showed a great willingness to participate,” he added, explaining that one of their requests is for street vendors to be allowed to work downtown and indians to sell hand-made objects to tourists.

“They were happy because we gave them a lot of information that hadn’t reached them – for instance, what the public and private expenditures on the World Cup represent; what it means to compare the $3.5 billion spent on the stadiums, of which only $1.7 billion comes from public resources, to the $32.4 billion we spent on education and the $40.3 billion we spent on health care last year,” the minister explained.

On the possibility of violent demonstrations during the World Cup, Carvalho said that the government expects that the society will not join the protests. “The population will gradually realize that this kind of demonstration doesn’t solve any problems. It only gets in the way of things, and deep down they should be avoided,” the minister.

He said that the government will promote discussions with groups of protesters, and that, in spite of the right to protest, the government expects they take place peacefully.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira