(ATR) A budget shortfall is not entirely out of the question for Rio 2016 but the organizing committee tells Around the Rings it remains unlikely.
On July 11, a source from the organizing committee told Reuters that Rio 2016 could be facing a deficit of up to $151 million dollars on the privately funded budget. The source named rent for the Olympic village as the main area where the numbers were not adding up.
This is not the first time that a deficit was foreseen for the Rio 2016 budget, as the committee was forced to conduct a thorough review from the final quarter of 2015through early 2016. Even with these cuts, Rio 2016 says that more may have to come if the numbers still have not been fully balanced.
"The amount of payments we are doing this month is huge," Mario Andrada, Head of Rio 2016 communications, said to ATR. "We don’t foresee a shortfall, but we cannot say the risk is zero. If we see a shortfall coming we will do so preserving the experience for the athletes and the public."
Andrada added that the main cause of the new possible imbalance was in fact the Olympic Village, although not waiting for rent payments from the Federal Government. He said that the amount of money Rio 2016 had to pay for the village rose, and the committee is exploring the possibility of refinancing loans received from local banks, to continue only to use private money for the budget.
"We’re not searching for public money," Andrada said. "President Temer said he was ready to help [if needed], but we are not going to go there with our hat in hand."
If an organizing committee budget shortfall were to be found after the Games, either the city, state, and federal government of Brazil would be on the hook for any cost overruns.
City and state officials did not return requests for comment, while a spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance told ATR that they could not comment on the matter as the Rio 2016 budget is private.
Written by Aaron Bauer in Rio de Janeiro
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