Blocked Funding Could Delay Olympic Construction In Next 30 Days

Delays on money transfers from Brazilian federal bank Caixa to the Olympic construction consortium "have affected two public works" on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to Alexa Salomão of ESTADÃO. The contract for the Deodoro Sports Complex, which will house part of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, "was signed in August, but since then, only one payment has been made." Nearly R$80M ($25.6M) "has not yet been transferred to the construction consortium." On Wednesday, 550 construction workers from the Deodoro site "received termination notices -- [the number] represents almost half of the site workers." As of next week, the rest of the team "will also leave the site." The prediction is that construction "could stop in the next 30 days" (ESTADÃO, 4/2).