Gusttavo Lima’s Price Tag: How One Concert Can Devour Half a City’s Culture Budget

Deborah Magagna and Chico Alves, ICL

Known for flaunting a lavish lifestyle and showing off planes and yachts on social media, Gusttavo Lima has had his fortune exposed in recent days for a less than glamorous reason. Investigated for participating in the illegal gambling money laundering scheme in the same police operation that arrested the “influencer” Deolane Bezerra, the country singer saw the court block R $ 20 million and ordered the confiscation of property and ships in the name of his company, Ballada Events and Productions.

Outside the focus of this investigation, however, there is another important portion of Gusttavo Lima’s income that originates from a very questionable practice.

An exclusive survey carried out by the portal ICL Notícias reveals that in 2024 alone the artist earned R $ 12.3 million in eleven shows paid for by city halls, mainly small and medium cities. For this, mayors use a large part of the municipal budget, something that can jeopardize other cultural initiatives and even services in areas such as health and education.

On the list are small cities like Mara Rosa, in Goiás, which has only 10 thousand inhabitants. On May 23, a king of tchê-tchê-re-re-tchê-tchê was hired to perform in the area for a fee of R1.1 million, which is equivalent to 10.35% of the municipal budget for the cultural field in the year . (R$ 10,629,800.00) and 1.31% of the total annual budget available for each department (R$ 83,874,936.00).

Dividing the value of the fee by the population, the result is a cost of R$ 102.80 for each resident of Mara Rosa.

The hiring of Gusttavo Lima by the municipality of Mara Rosa published in the Official Gazette

Oh ICL News he sent questions to the city’s mayor, Flavio Moura, about the high value of the artist’s fee. As soon as there is a response, it will be published in this space. The president of the urban PT, Flávia Cavalcante criticizes the expenditure on the show. “It’s absurd. I am a teacher and I work daily in a school that needs to expand and doesn’t. Meanwhile, the man makes all that money in one night?”, she asks, in an interview with the portal. “There are good initiatives carried out by the city hall, but there are many still lost in the city: day care, public competition for teachers…”.

In the municipality of Campo Verde, in Mato Grosso, Gusttavo Lima signed a contract at the beginning of July to perform for the same stratospheric fee of R$1.1 million. In this case, the municipality’s expenditure on the country singer corresponds to half of the municipal budget for culture in 2024, more precisely 52.78%. Or R$24.67 for each of the 44 thousand inhabitants.

Gusttavo Lima was on track in 2022

Two years ago, the singer was at the center of the scandal that identified city halls that committed a large part of the budget to pay high fees to country artists — exactly what is happening now.

Members of the Public Administration from several states took action and canceled some presentations. The artists were not investigated, but rather the city halls that hired them for sums that were considered disproportionate to their revenue and size.

The focus of the investigation drew particular attention because many of the stars of this musical genre had harshly criticized the Rouanet Law, for transferring public tax exemption funds to artists — this was Jair Bolsonaro’s argument, which the majority of them support. While they were saying this, several countries received millions of reais from small municipal halls inside.

Among these, Gusttavo Lima has been the biggest fee ever. His pay is usually double that of other stars of the same style.

She appeared in tears in a video, in 2022, where she complained about the actions of the MP and the criticism she received. “I do not agree with the use of public money, my taxes are current”, he argued, as if municipal budget resources were not also public money.

After publishing this message, the singer reduced the number of shows booked in small cities for the rest of 2022 and 2023.

As the ICL Notícias survey shows, this abstinence did not last long.

Image: Henrique Caldeira | ICL

The 2024 list of municipalities includes Nova Russas, in Ceará, where the show almost did not take place. In July, the Public Ministry filed a lawsuit requesting the cancellation of the “Festeja” event, in which Gusttavo Lima was included, due to the high fees. Judge Renata Guimarães Guerra decided, however, that there were not enough elements to grant the injunction requested by the MP.

In her decision, the judge pointed out that the contracting values ​​”were established based on market research and invoices, being in line with the prices charged”.

Therefore, Gusttavo Lima put R$ 1.2 million in his pocket for the presentation in the city of Ceará.

João Gomes, a member of the Republican party in Nova Russas and an ally of the mayoral candidate Pedro Ximenes, of the PT, criticizes the expenditure. “The show was held at the Events Center, which was opened recently and cost something close to R$5 million. One show cost 20% of the work. That doesn’t make sense,” Gomes said.

ICL Notícias sent an email to the office of the mayor of the city, Giordanna Mano (PL) and as soon as there is a response it will be published here.

In addition to Mara Rosa, Nova Russas and Campo Verde, the other municipalities in which Gusttavo Lima performed this year are Tupã (SP), Icó (CE), Mossoró (RN), Pau dos Ferros (RN), Luis Eduardo Magalhães (BA ) , Petrolina (PE, Maceió (AL) and Mata Grande (AL).

Image: ICL

Image: ICL

Image: ICL

Image: ICL

Image: ICL

Image: ICL

Image: ICL

Legislation allows the hiring of shows like this without a bid. But since 2022, MP prosecutors have been paying attention to this kind of show for other reasons: because of the high value of the fees and because they question the ability of the city halls to pay for them.

Another concern for prosecutors in these cases is curbing the practice of money laundering.

The current National Secretary of Public Security, Mário Sarrubbo was the head of the Public Ministry in São Paulo two years ago, when he warned about this possibility of deviation when hiring shows made by municipalities in São Paulo. “There are some doubts and investigations. Because hiring from the city hall could be an act of cleaning money collected irregularly”, he said at that time.

However, nothing indicates that the MP from these states will cause a headache for Gusttavo Lima, as happened in 2022.

The singer’s only concern at the moment is the investigation that the Pernambuco Civil Police is conducting in partnership with the Ministry of Justice, where he is suspected of laundering money from illegal gambling. So far the shows held for city halls have not caused stress to the people of the country, only profit.

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