Slashdot Mirror
SAP Paid Bribes To Panamanian Officials
jfruh writes: A former SAP exec has pled guilty to bribing Panamanian officials in a successful attempt to sell SAP licenses to the Panamanian government. Vicente Eduardo Garcia, SAP's former vice president of global and strategic accounts for Latin America, says he wasn't the only SAP employee who knew about the scheme. From the Dept. of Justice press release, "According to Garcia’s admissions, the conspirators used sham contracts and false invoices to disguise the true nature of the bribes. Garcia further admitted that he believed paying such bribes was necessary to secure both the initial contract and additional Panamanian government contracts."
I thought this was how the wheels of bureaucracy were greased in Central America.
Friends of mine headed south from Belize to continue a trip we were on together, and they experienced it along the rest of their trip through Central America. Get to a border: Grease a palm. Get stopped randomly by the "police:" Grease a palm. Since money is paper, I guess you can call that "paperwork." Only, it is far more efficient than the other kind.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
>> in South America? Say it ain't so!
I'll say it ain't so. Panama's in CENTRAL America.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=google+ma...
I spent four years in Central America, in Costa Rica and Panama. I only wonder why this is news.
If you take a look at the Panama City skyline, it's pretty impressive. The population for the metropolitan area is only about 1.5 million though, so why all the skyscrapers? Who lives there?
No one. The government started investing in infrastructure after the Canal changed hands and they actually started getting money from it, and this fostered a booming construction trade. The construction companies thought that this government money was a grand idea, and the best way to keep it flowing is obviously to kick some of it back to the government officials. The government has spend the last decade trying to hide the debt that has been piling up as a result of this, and the only thing that I can say is that at least some of the money went into infrastructure.
Corruption is the expected norm in the entirety of Central America. It's how things are done there. I've bribed police there myself, and one of my friends was elected Representante de Panama while I was there: I can confirm that this operates the same way on all levels. The only reason I can think of why this would show up in the news at all is that someone didn't get paid enough. Where is the story here?
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.