Petrobras Corruption Analysis

Throughout human history, there has been corruption all over the world and of course different types as well, no doubt that each country has some form of corruption but it is at its worst in Latin America. This dreadful act is at its time high and it's not going down anytime soon, most of these Latin American countries lack of democracy, but instead have a dictator ruler. Corruption among official is abuse of power for their own self gain. According to Americas Market Intelligence “Latin American countries were characterized by having weak democratic institutions and authoritative governments, the perfect combination for the spread of corruption” they also mention the adverse effect corruption has on these countries, the high levels of corruption experience lower acceptance of established institutions, defaulted court system that cause a political instability,lower quality of public infrastructure and expenditures on education and health.There website also mentions that there is a direct correlation between corruption growth of the informal economy and the spread of illicit activity in the form of organized crime and illegal cartels.

Dilma Rousseff- President of Brazil, has a tough agenda to address issues and challenges within Brazil. However, her administration also needs a strong plan for the global stage. I would like to discuss recent global challenges of Brazil .Here are three global challenges Brazil will face in Rousseff’s second term:

The former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been convicted of passive corruption and money laundering and sentenced to 12 years and one month in prison. He has been accused of receiving a beachfront triplex apartment worth $755,000 from a construction company as a gift, but prosecutors alleged the gift as part of a bribe manipulated by Lula at the oil company run by the state, Petrobras (Phillips, 2018). The victim in this situation is the oil company Petrobras and consequently the costumers that use their expensive gasoline for transportation

The corruption culture in Brazil affects not only our health system, but security and education as well and if it ends, we’ll have a wonderful place to

The fact remains that Brazil, Earth’s fourth biggest democratic government, plunged into political turmoil in a matter of years (2). On May 12 2016, Brazil’s Senate voted 55 to 22 to suspend President Dilma Rousseff, advancing impeachment proceedings against her for allegedly breaking government budget restrictions. But while the legal basis for her removal hangs on disputed interpretations of budgetary law, the debate

Former President Lula da Silva: Lula is a former union leader who is part of the Left-Wing, Worker’s Party who is being questioned for the Petrobras scandal. He was the President of Brazil from 2003-2011, and he is suspected of benefiting from billions of dollars generated from larger contracts that funded his campaign and pockets. During his presidency, he helped bring up commodity prices to a growth rate of 7.5% in 2010. Further, he was the most admired political figure in the world for driving out poverty in Brazil, and his country hosted the World Cup, as well as hosting the summer 2016 Olympics.

Like any other continent with industrialized countries South America faces ethical dilemmas, sustainability issues, and corporate social responsibilities when dealing with international or domestic businesses. Most of the problems in South America revolved around corruption and bribes by business or government officials. The South American countries that standout the most are Brazil and Venezuela due to the vast amount of corruption that has recently been brought to light worldwide. Corruption there has hurt their countries economy and the South American region as a whole.

scandals, Brazil’s government has an approval rating of 14%. This is best shown with the recent

Our politicians are being bribed to influence what laws are being made in this country at a federal level. Due to the current situation in American politics corruption has become an accepted form of conducting business in the political world. “Since the implication of citizen’s united in 2010 we have seen a dramatic turn in the direction of politics” (Silver). This is because now, any donor is allowed to contribute undisclosed amounts to any political campaign. The argument against this is that the politician running the campaign will feel the need to return the favor to the donor once they are in office. Statistics show this to be true. According to a twenty-year study done by Northwestern University this is true, in fact the study found that “only the top ten percent of earners in America are represented adequately by congress” (Silver).

Brazil has an unequal society with a large income gap between the rich and the poor. Since Brazil’s transition to democracy, there has been minimal change in its political and social inequalities. The answer to Brazils Petrobras corruption scandal focuses primarily on the country’s consistent political clientelism and patronage.

Will Carless’s article (November 8, 2016) "Imagine you had to vote by law, like your future really depended on it" exposes government corruption in Brazil and the dangers of being forced to vote. Brazilian citizens are outraged at their politicians’ corrupt scandals and are forced to vote for the very politicians they despise. Brazil recently emerged from a long period of dictatorship. Citizens ages eighteen to seventy are required to vote in order to rekindle the nation’s desire of establishing a free democratic nation. Brazilians are disgusted with politics especially since officials are corrupt, especially since former president Dilma Rousseff was impeached and many politicians face criminal charges. Additionally, A 2014 poll taken found

Clean Company Act 2014 also states “Under the Act, bid rigging and fraud in public procurement, direct and indirect acts of bribery, and attempted bribery of Brazilian public officials and of foreign public officials are illegal.” (Business Corruption in Brazil, 2015). This act directly relates to what happened in the Petrobras case and is to prevent it from ever happen

Temer’s takeover represents a radical shift in Brazil’s political identity. He and his cabinet are fiscally and socially conservative, thus putting and end to a dozen years of left-leaning leaders. But wether it is liberal or conservative, Brazilian government is still seemingly corrupt as more than half the senate is under investigation for some form of malpractice. 352 of Brazil’s 594 members of congress are currently under investigation for corruption charges.

Political corruption was a huge problem in ancient rome.Rome had almost zero consistency when it comes to their leaders this was probably the main reason the rome empire fell.The people lost the trust in their government because it was always moving parts and changing. The government has no control over the people. “100 years, Rome had 37 different emperors - 25 of whom were removed from office by assassination.” If this stat was revealed about your country that is when you know your country is in trouble because there is no consistency . This is a huge problem because your government is what runs your country and if it is in corruption that means that the civilization will most likely fall. We have political corruption happening in our government in the usa. The problem with the usa is the people running to be the president is not the average people the candidates try to make seem like the cana are. The candidates make you think that but they are really just rich people who want to rule. In our country it costs over a stunning amount of money, 1 million dollars. If the candidate are some normal person trying to run for president how would the candidate have a million dollars. America is NOT a democracy even though the government wants you to think that america is actually an oligarchy. “Now [the United States is] just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the

The costs of corruption are not easy to measure, but certain estimates suggest that, “corruption in Brazil may eat up somewhere between 1.35% and 5% of GDP” (Power and Taylor, 2011). Nonetheless, it is not so much the economic outcome that one must worry about when speaking about corruption. Rather, it should be realized that corruption causes a steady decline in citizen’s trust towards political actors and the political system. In various countries of the global south, licenses, authorizations, and permits of different kinds have to be obtained in order to take part in different activities like opening shops, obtaining a driving license, travelling abroad and so on. For this to occur, government offices and officials have to be contacted in order to inspect or authorize such activities. This gives such government officials a monopoly of power, and many of them (especially in developing countries) abuse this power by not authorizing licenses/documents for months. Further, they extract bribes from the people who need such permits or authorizations (Tanzi, 1998). Clientelism, or a social order depending upon relations of patronage, has a long history in Latin America. It specifically refers to a system wherein politicians offer money, services, or jobs to citizens via party machine operatives, with the expectation being that these clients will engage in some form of political support in order to return the favor (Schaffer and Baker, 2015).