Argentine Corruption
Clientelism is an exchange of cash for favours, as opposed to cash for honest endeavour. There is therefore a thin line between clientelist, rent-seeking behaviour and bribery. Corruption in Greece at the highest level has been institutionalized for decades. In a similar way, corruption grew in Argentina in the years of Peronism and military rule.
One vivid example from the days of the junta is recounted by Vito Tanzi. A student of his told him that his father had been approached by a high-ranking member of the military, and proposed that he purchase advertising hoardings that were relatively low in price as they faced the opposite way to oncoming traffic in a one-way system.
Then the official would ensure that the direction of traffic was reversed, and the two would share the huge profits that ensued as the value of the advertising space increased. ‘Over future years, I would become progressively more aware of the existence of corruption in Argentina’, Tanzi notes.
Corrupt practices continued in the 1990s. Privatisation programmes, nominally intended to improve economic efficiency, can create opportunities for corrupt practices as valuable state-owned assets are sold. In practice, Argentina’s privatisations were a mix of good and bad. In Carlos Menem’s first term as president, the major utilities and many other enterprises were privatised. In the case of the telephone system, this led to significant investment, modernisation and service improvements, benefiting the entire country.
On the other hand, there was the notorious case of Alfredo Yabran, a businessman accused of profiting secredy from privatisation deals and using his contacts with the Menem regime to arrange a monopoly of postal services. Yabran was suspected of being behind the murder of photographer Jose Luis Cabezas, who had taken the first picture of him to appear in the media. Cabezas later became a figurehead for the freedom of the press, and Yabran apparendy committed suicide. It did not help that Yabran had links to the former military regime.Carlos Menem himself has faced repeated charges and accusations of corruption, which he has consistendy denied.
In December 2008, the German multinational company Siemens paid an $800 million fine to steed a case with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in slush funds to win contracts around the world. One of the biggest cases in the SEC charges involved Greece, while another concerned paying bribes to Argentine officials to win the national ID card contract under the Menem administration.
