With the March arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, several state governments decided to shut down commercial activities and establish mandatory quarantines. However, the decree wasn’t backed by President Jair Bolsonaro, who advocated against the closure of these industries.
Despite the opposition from the judicial courts and two health ministers who have resigned during this period, Bolsonaro has declared lotteries as “essential activities”, which is why operations are still going, even though they’ve reported mixed results.
The weeks prior to the quarantine were not positive at a financial level either, with state lottery operator Caixa Econômica Federal revealing that profits in the first quarter totaled $523m, as reported by BNL Data.
The lottery sector suffered a 22.2% setback when compared to the first quarter in 2019, when it registered $684m in profits. This figure also represents a 37.8% fall in contrast with the previous quarter, when $854m were generated.
Caixa’s proceeds are directed to a number of social programs, including financial aid to the health sector.
Contributing to this was Deputies Enio Verri, Perpétua Almeida, Fernanda Melchionna and Joenia Wapichana who presented this week the project 2715/20.
This project could prevent all privatization processes, notably that of the Caixa Loterías, from being carried out by the public administration in Brazil for 12 months, after the government lifts the state of emergency, which will be in place until the end of 2020.
The deputies said that the continuation of these privatization processes would be “irresponsible” and would generate significant losses for the Union.