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15/04/2015 | An Escalating Corruption Scandal Rocks Brazil

Mary Anastasia O'Grady

Funds stolen from state-owned companies may have bought President Rousseff’s re-election.

 

Former Brazilian presidential candidate Aécio Neves speaks for a lot of his compatriots when he says President Dilma Rousseff’s Workers’ Party (PT) used stolen funds to defeat him in Brazil’s runoff presidential election in October.

In an interview in Lima last month I asked Mr. Neves—who is president of the Social Democracy Party of Brazil (PSDB)—whether he lost the election because the socialism of the hard-left Ms. Rousseff had greater appeal to Brazilians than his more market-oriented platform.

He denied the possibility. He lost, he told me, because of “organized crime.”

Mr. Neves, a former governor of the state of Minas Gerais, wasn’t referring to the mafia. He was talking about an alleged skimming operation at the government-owned oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras). Prosecutors allege that Petrobras contractors were permitted to pad their contracts and remit the excess as kickbacks to the oil company, which passed hundreds of millions of dollars to politicians and, importantly, the PT.

The party spent lavishly to win the election, and it now looks like it was able to do so because of the millions in allegedly illegal contributions that flowed from the oil company. If true, this was indeed a crime, and very well organized.

The scandal keeps growing. It’s as if prosecutors pulled on a loose string and a blanket covering not just one dirty deal but dozens began to unravel. Yet as the details unfold—allegedly involving hundreds of millions of dollars, stolen from not only Petrobras but also from other state-owned enterprises—there is a danger that Brazil will miss the most important lesson.

Law enforcement must hold individuals accountable, but the state’s oversize role in the economy is what led to this mess. Replacing the players with individuals who seem more honest will not eliminate the cause of corruption.

State-owned companies are controlled by the political class. The temptation to use the companies like cookie jars, particularly when commodity prices are booming and large quantities of money are sloshing around, will always be great. To expect politicians not to try to get at those resources is like trusting a fox to guard a fattened hen.

Whether Ms. Rousseff is being honest when she says she did not know about the kickback scheme matters little to most Brazilians. Her problem, as Mr. Neves implies, is that the allegations have put the legitimacy of her narrow victory—by a margin of around 3%—in doubt. Her party is fighting the charges but meanwhile Ms. Rousseff is in no shape to lead.

On March 15 an estimated million and a half Brazilians turned out on the nation’s streets to protest her government. In a mid-March Datafolha poll 62% of respondents rated Ms. Rousseff’s government as “bad” or “terrible.”

In a roaring economy, the public reaction to the revelations might be different. But this political crisis couldn’t come at worse time for the Brazilian pocketbook. Inflation is topping 8%, the economy did not grow in 2014, and in 2015 could shrink by almost 2%, according to CIBC World Markets.

Ms. Rousseff has brought in well-respected, Chicago-trained economist Joaquim Levy to head the finance ministry. His plan calls for a return to fiscal discipline, but he needs the help of PT allies—like the powerful Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB)—in Congress. They have been reluctant—and when they go along, Ms. Rousseff is having to bear the political cost of the adjustment. So even if Mr. Levy is successful, Ms. Rousseff’s popularity may not recover.

The scandal is likely to drag on because of its size and complexity. Last month prosecutors accused Workers’ Party treasurer João Vaccari of soliciting those “donations” to the party. In testimony before a congressional committee last week, Mr. Vaccari denied any wrongdoing.

One problem may have been that a procurement process closed to international bidders invited collusion. Prosecutors have charged four former Petrobras executives and nearly two dozen other individuals at a handful of large Brazilian engineering firms with money laundering and corruption. Almost 50 politicians from a variety of political parties are also under investigation.

The outcry against corruption is an indication of the vibrancy of Brazilian civil society. The judiciary’s independence is also good news. As the Journal’s Will Connors and Luciana Magalhaes reported on April 6, the small team of prosecutors is well trained. Top-notch investigative work has gone forward despite the powerful individuals it touches. In a country that has struggled with the rule of law, this is big.

But it’s not enough. As Rafael Schechtman, a partner at the Rio-based energy consulting firm CBIE, told me last week, “when the political class is involved in running the companies, then corruption becomes institutionalized.” Punishing the crooks is a necessary but insufficient response to what is essentially a governance problem caused by government ownership.

Wall Street Journal (Estados Unidos)

 



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