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Widespread Corruption Undermines Rousseff’s Presidency

Saturday, October 18, 2014 11:03
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Widespread Corruption Undermines Rousseff’s Presidency

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(BRAZIL) With only two weeks until Brazilians vote in the second round for the presidency, the two candidates, the current president, Dilma Rousseff, from PT, and Senator Aecio Neves, from PSDB, a new wave of suspicions and accusations of corruption has shaken Rousseff’s image.

The former director of supply from Brazil’s largest public company, Petrobras, Paulo Roberto Costa, testified this week before a judge that this company had a system of institutionalized bribery and that the PT pocketed between 1% and 3% of all contracts that were executed between 2004 and 2012.

But the corrupt schemes did not end there. Forex trader expert in money laundering and shady business partner of Costa, Alberto Youssef added that: From what I remember, there was not a company at the time that failed to pay.”

Both Costa and Youssef were forced to testify to save his own skin and not spend the remainder of their lives in prison: they were arrested and charged, among other things, for embezzlement and money laundering.

It was discovered that Costa had a Swiss account with more than 18 million euros, and the police gathered evidence of the relationship with various business with Yousseff. Costa also received money from companies related to the Brazilian oil giant

Both agreed with the judge that if they testified and provided information on the system of corruption that, according to their statements, was going through Petrobras, their sentences would be lowered from the 40 years that they would have to spend in jail. The shock that their testimony has created stems from the fact that while all this corruption took place, Dilma Rousseff was president of the board of Petrobras.

The first bomb-testimony was revealed several weeks ago by a magazine, where Costa claimed that more than a dozen Brazilian politicians, including senators and former ministers had illegally  appropriated money from Petrobras.

Now, the accusation goes a step further. Yousseff explained that he and Costa used to meet with the Workers Party’s Treasurer, among others, to deliver the part of the bribe charged by the political party.

We met in hotels in Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo, or in his own house. There we discussed matters related to the companies that were going to participate in projects led by Petrobras, ” said Yousseff.

According to Yousseff, companies paid money to receive millionaire contracts. For example, in the construction of the Petrobras refinery in Pernambuco, in northeastern Brazil, about 68 million reais  were paid in bribes.

Some Brazilian media estimated that in this scheme alone, the corruption led to the diversion of more than 10 billion reais.

Yousseff went further and said that a group of Congressmen pressed in 2004 to then President Lula to name Costa as the head of the Supply Department  at Petrobras, and that they pressured Lula by blocking political initiatives in Congress.

“At the time, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva went mad and had to finally give in and put Paulo Roberto Costa in office.” In a meeting with unionists in São Paulo, Lula himself denied these facts: “I’m fed up about allegations of corruption on the eve of elections.” He added: “It is always the same: when we have elections, allegations appear, and there seems to be no need to prove anything.”

Arlindo Chinaglia, a deputy from the PT, specified that in the three months leading up to the appointment of Costa, in 2004, the Brazilian Congress, far from standing up, introduced and passed a considerable number of amendments. In this way, Chinaglia tried to dismantle the argument presented by Yousseff.

However, allegations of corruption involving the PT, which has been in power for 12 years, mark and set the pace of the campaign. The match between Rousseff and Aecio Neves, will end next 26 October.

Rousseff‘s candidacy accuses Neves of spurring these accusations and of using electoral poison as an ammunition. How strange is that it comes out when there are just two weeks left before the people vote,” she said yesterday, echoing statements by Lula.

Neves reacted and said that the latest accusations prove thatthey have stolen the largest company in the country,” and that “the president is not indignant with that, but with the fact that the accusations come out now”.


Luis R. Miranda is the Founder and Editor of The Real Agenda. His 16 years of experience in Journalism include television, radio, print and Internet news. Luis obtained his Journalism degree from Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, where he graduated in Mass Media Communication in 1998. He also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcasting from Montclair State University in New Jersey. Among his most distinguished interviews are: Costa Rican President Jose Maria Figueres and James Hansen from NASA Space Goddard Institute. Read more about Luis.

The article Widespread Corruption Undermines Rousseff’s Presidency published by TheSleuthJournal – Real News Without Synthetics



Source: http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/widespread-corruption-undermines-rousseffs-presidency/

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