Tag Archives: Corruption in Brazil

Corruption and Big Business Triumph in Brazil

18 Sunday Sep 2016

Posted by in Brazil

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new-brazil-president-michel-temer-august-31-2016

New Brazil President Michel Temer – August 31, 2016
Photo Credit: Pensa Brasil

 

On August 31, 2016, following her four-month battle against members of congress calling for her impeachment, Brazil’s first female president Dilma Rousseff lost by 61 to 20 Senate votes. The corrupt political class and their Big Business collaborators won the day. Michel Temer – Rousseff’s former Vice President and ally from the right-wing Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) – now governs Brazil until her mandate ends in 2018.

After thirteen years of economic boom then bust, the government of Brazil’s center-left socialist democratic Workers Party (PT) became the victim of a parliamentary coup d’état. The former president and popular PT leader Luiz Inacio ‘Lula’ da Silva now faces charges of masterminding the Petrobras graft scandal intended to make him ineligible to run for the presidency at the next election.

Brazil’s Workers Party is by no means exempt from corrupt practices. Brazil runs on corruption. It’s a plague that infects not only the government but also all of Brazilian society. If you do business with Brazil, you may or may not be aware of the corruptive hoops that your Brazilian partners or representatives jump through daily to stay in business and meet your requirements.

Since its foundation in 1980 as a large left-wing socialist movement, arising from opposition to the military dictatorship following the 1964 coup d’état, the Workers Party moved towards a form of democratic socialism that served the capitalist economic class while implementing social programs to lift the working poor out of poverty.

When my family and I migrated to Brazil in 1987, I experienced first-hand the struggles of Brazil’s majority low-wage workers. At the time, while I still struggled to learn Portuguese, I became a strong supporter of the PT presidential candidate, Lula da Silva in the 1989 General Elections. Lula’s rise from poverty and his tireless fight for workers’ rights inspired and gave hope to the people…me inclusive.

After three failed attempts for the presidency (1989, 1994 & 1998), Lula won the 2002 General Elections in the second round with 61.3 percent (52.7 million votes), becoming at the time the second most voted-for-president in the world, after Ronald Reagan (1984).

I recall well that election and our elation after years of struggle. Brazilians, especially those of the educated middle class, deemed a person without a college degree unworthy to hold the nation’s top post. A common criticism for not voting for Lula: How would a person of his humble origins be able to negotiate with foreign leaders? In addition to shedding his Che Guevara appearance, Lula had to appease investors, fearing the “Lula Risk,” that he would stay the economic course set out by his predecessor, if elected.

The impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff has knocked me sideways. The pain from the fall runs deep. Under the new right-wing government’s neoliberal economic strategies for recovery, all the gains for Brazil’s low-paid workers and their families are now at risk. But that’s another story.

 

Brazil’s First Female President Under Fire

23 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in Brazil, Economy and Finance

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Protesters in Sao Paulo - Brazil - 16 August 2015

Protestors on Avenida Paulista – São Paulo – Brazil – 16 August 2015
Photo Credit: David Shalom / iG São Paulo

After leading Brazil’s economic boom under Former President Lula da Silva (2003-2010) and its record in reducing unemployment and poverty, the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT) government is facing a tough time. A weak global economy has taken its toll on South America’s largest economy. As has happened before during periods of recession, Brazil’s cost of living and job losses are on the rise again. This time, the implosion of the US$2 billion graft at oil giant, Petrobras, in March 2014, has weakened the nation’s economic foundations and moral fabric.

For the government opposition, conditions are ripe for bringing down President Dilma Rousseff and the Workers’ Party, in power since 2003. With the media giant, Grupo Globo, stoking the fires of discontent, and backed by the major conservative party (PSDB), an estimated 795,000 people from rising right-wing organizations and the middle class took to the streets for the third time this year on Sunday, August 16, in all major cities across the country. Continue reading →

Corruption in the Brazilian Workplace

18 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by in Brazil, Working Life

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Source: Protests against Corruption throughout Brazil during Independence Celebrations, RondoniaVip, Brazil, 7 September 2011

Corruption has many faces.  Our governments are corrupt when they sell arms to dictatorship governments that serve the interests of their nations. Our
governments are also corrupt when they rig elections in order to stay in power.
Our elected politicians are corrupt when they abuse the power invested in them
for their own interests. Our corporate executives and business owners are corrupt when they lavish politicians with luxury gifts or large sums of money to have them pass laws that will benefit their business enterprises. We, as individuals, are corrupt when we pay bribes to government officials for personal benefits.

Having lived for 28 years under a dictatorship government, I was well aware of the abuses of political power in stealing public funds and foreign aid for personal enrichment, and in silencing political rivals and opposition activists. To survive, I was complicit with my silent acceptance of corruption.

Nevertheless, when I started working in Brazil, I was not prepared for the endemic government corruption that had trickled down into the workplace and sprouted roots. This went far beyond the workers’ silent complicity. This was participation in corrupt activities for survival within a corrupt society – a society of glaring socio-economic inequality between the minority super-rich elites and the majority working class. (During the period 1987 to 2003 when I lived in Brazil, the middle class was insignificant in number.)

The sluggish, heavy-weight Brazilian bureaucracy fed corruption. Burocracia brasileira was a bad-word bounced around the workplace like a soccer ball. Bureaucracy forced many entrepreneurs and corporate executives to bribe government employees (a lifetime position) at all levels to do their jobs in processing the myriad documents required for starting up and operating a business, and, for importers and exporters, obtaining an import license or clearing your goods at the port.

Government auditors inspecting your company’s accounts could find discrepancies that required the payment of high fines – errors that could disappear with a bribe of a much smaller sum.

To reduce the heavy burden of countless taxes at all levels of production and commercialization that stifle the growth of small and medium-sized businesses, many business owners resort to maintaining two separate ledgers – Caixa 1 and Caixa 2 – one with the correct values; the other for taxation and auditing.

Impunity of top government officials, corrupt attorneys, and a comatose judicial system make it difficult to curb corruption. Whistleblowers and witnesses can be neutralized or eliminated. Court documents can disappear.

Newly-elected President Dilma Rousseff has taken a courageous suicidal step in trying to scourge corruption from her government. The growing middle class has joined her in public protests for an end to corruption. But the cancerous cells of corruption cannot be destroyed overnight. It is a painful, slow process towards recovery and transparency.