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."

Comments

I thought this was the only way SAP gets sold.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

I thought this was the only way SAP gets sold. It's not like any rational person would pull it into their organization. But for a $90K payday, sure, it's only the taxpayers' money, right?

Re:I thought this was the only way SAP gets sold.

[thedonger]

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.

No kidding

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Paying bribes is one of the only ways SAP is likely to get their foot in the door. After that the money all flows the other way.

Re:I'm shocked!

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> 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...

SAP market penetration

[MattGWU]

I thought SAP already had pretty a pretty solid foothold in the Spanish-speaking world.

You always see "Transmitido en Español en SAP" at the beginning of soap operas and game shows and things.

How is this different from any other SAP sale??

[ErichTheRed]

I know I sound cynical, but enterprise software vendors can't make these multimillion dollar deals happen without greasing a few palms. These software packages are so awful and require millions more in consulting beyond the license price -- I can't see any technically oriented person supporting their purchase without some inducement. In this case, it was a direct bribe that the sales team thought they could get away with.

Most software companies slip these things under the table through channels that don't legally qualify as bribes. Ever wonder why horrible expensive software packages are sometimes called "golf course ware?" It's a dirty business and things like paying for some kid of an exec's school tuition, or rounds and rounds of strip club visits, or golf, or "educational product seminars" in Aruba is just cost of sales for these companies. It's kind of like lobbyists -- they can't legally hand a Congressperson a paper bag full of money, but they can sure make things happen for them behind the scenes that are the equivalent of the paper bag.

Part of me wishes I was a CTO so I could just line up the vendors and collect bribe after bribe...oops, sorry, "favor" after "favor." Then again, I've worked with some of this horrible software (SAP, Oracle, etc.) and the awful botton-of-the-barrel offshored or H-1B management consultants they send in to "implement" them. No wonder everyone outside of large businesses wants nothing to do with big monolithic packages!!

Panama City Skyline

[Tenebrousedge]

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?