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The "Casa da Moeda do Brasil", the State company responsible for printing banknotes, minting coins, printing official documents and notorial seals announced that due to a "technical failure" between last Thursday (May 22) and this Tuesday (May 27) some 40 thousand Brazilian have been left without passports, further that this number will grow by around 10 thousand more each day until the problem is resolved. And it's not like this is the first time this has happened. There are frequent reports in the Brazilian news media about computer system failures at the Federal Police, printing problems at the "Casa da Moeda", etc., that have interrupted production of passports over the past couple of years.

The Brazilian Federal Police who are responsible for issuing passports, in typical style, have stated that "they have absolutely no reports of difficulties for Brazilian citizens". Well, I have to tell you that if over 40 thousand people haven't received their passports and it's growing every single day and this isn't categorized as a "difficulty", then I don't know what the heck is! Seriously guys, exactly how many of those people do you think have probably had to forego business trips, long dreamed of vactions, international moves, etc., because they didn't have the proper travel documents to embark???

The Brazilian citizen is taxed out of his/her skin in the first place, gets almost nothing in return and when the government screws up not only do they NOT apologize for the damage they've done, but they have the unmitigated gall to flat-out LIE to the public saying this hasn't caused problems. Shame on all of you!

Cheers,
William James Woodward, EB Experts Team