The period 1999- 2017
has been tragic for Venezuela. The state has become a narco-state and the
government an open dictatorship, while rampant corruption has run the country
into the ground. More than $300 billion have gone into the pockets of the
members of the regime and their accomplices in the country and abroad.
Countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Brazil under Lula and Rousseff, Argentina under the Kirchners, El Salvador under the Front Farabundo Marti,
Dominican Republic and small Caribbean countries members of Petro Caribe have
enjoyed the prodigality of the Venezuelan dictators Chavez and Maduro, giving them,
as payment, their unconditional political
support. Political leaders such as Lula da Silva, Daniel Ortega, Evo Morales,
the Kirchners, Dilma Roussef, Raul Castro and organizations such as ALBA,
UNASUR, ALBANISA in Nicaragua, have received significant amounts of money from
the Venezuelan dictators. Latin American presidential candidates of similar
political ideology to the Chavista dictatorship have received money for their
presidential campaigns.
This orgy of political corruption,
involving significant, illegal financial transfers, has left the country in
ruins, forced to get in debt to survive. Today, Venezuelan total debt is six
times higher than when chavismo came into power, in spite of having received
the highest oil income in Venezuelan history. The only way the Venezuelan
dictatorship can currently avoid default is by getting new loans from China
and/or Russia while incessantly printing new money, which has led to
hyperinflation. In addition to those two countries which have supplied the
Venezuelan dictatorship with about $85-90 billion in loans in the last seven
years, there is another important source of money for the regime, some of the
oil companies active in the country. Oil companies such as Russia’s Rosneft or
China’s CNPC are two of these companies supplying the Venezuelan regime with
money. They are geopolitical tools of their governments. But there other companies,
such as ChevronTexaco, Schlumberger and Halliburton, which do not have a
political motivation for doing so but simply follow what they consider to be
good business strategy. By staying in chavista Venezuela and financing its
dictatorial regime these companies believe they can survive and prosper in the
country, while exhibiting disregard for business ethics. Not only they have
given cash or received promissory notes from the regime to continue operations
in the country but they have accepted to partner with the state oil company,
Petroleos de Venezuela, a company ripe with corruption, being investigated
internationally for money laundering. In working with the corrupt Venezuelan
oil company their international prestige has suffered. The same considerations
apply to multinational financial auditors, such as KPMG, which continue to
validate the financial results of the Venezuelan state oil company, in spite of
their increasing suspicions that something is rotten in La Campiña (the site of
the company’s headquarters in Caracas, Venezuela) or Goldman Sachs, the
financial company that recently acquired over $2 billion in tainted Venezuelan
bonds from the Maduro regime.
There was a time in
which international companies claimed that a lack of heart was acceptable and
that they were businessmen, not politicians, and could do business with the
worst governments in earth. This is no longer the case. The issue of business ethics
is becoming much more important and moral and, even, legal sanctions are
emerging against companies that “get in bed” with dictators and corrupt
regimes. Most, if not all, big corporations have included good business ethic
practices in their mission statements. Solid business ethics are not only a
moral imperative but they represent good business strategy. Multinational
corporations have to realize that they cannot be good guys in country A and bad
guys in country B and that good business ethics should be consistently applied
across the board. They cannot play the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde game with
impunity. In the case of Venezuela those
corporations that have become cozy with the Venezuelan dictatorship, believing
this regime will be in power forever, run the risk of losing credibility with
future democratic governments and the public at large. They are using a
two-edged sword that cuts both ways.
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