{"id":2415,"date":"2017-06-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-11T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armando.info\/?p=2415"},"modified":"2017-06-11T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-11T00:00:00","slug":"the-currency-rounding-that-benefited-odebrecht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armando.info\/en\/the-currency-rounding-that-benefited-odebrecht\/","title":{"rendered":"The Currency Rounding that Benefited Odebrecht"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The \r\n'80 -20' must not be known; otherwise, the Tocoma project falls,\" warned one \r\nengineer to another in the middle of the urgency to progress with the works \r\n(once again) of the Manuel Piar hydroelectric plant, in Tocoma, Bolivar state, \r\nin the rich Venezuelan Guayana. It was 2014, and the internal auditors of \r\nCorpoelec, the Venezuelan state power holding company, had months of reviewing \r\nthe work's invoices - including many issued by the Brazilian company Odebrecht - \r\nto find out the reasons for its delay and the great escalation of its \r\ncost.<\/p>\n\n\r\n\n

In \r\nCiudad Guayana, the industrial and commercial capital of the region, the \"80-20\" \r\nwas an open secret. Engineers, technicians, administrators, trade unionists and \r\nlawyers working there knew that billing in bolivars had been dollarized through \r\nthis mechanism that contravened the exchange control and the initial \r\ncontract.<\/p>\n\n