The Bribery Aisle: How Wal-Mart Used Payoffs To Get Its Way in Mexico
Source: New York Times
The Bribery Aisle: How Wal-Mart Used Payoffs To Get Its Way in Mexico
Wal-Mart de Mexico was an aggressive and creative corrupter, offering large payoffs to get what the law otherwise prohibited, an examination by The New York Times found.
By DAVID BARSTOW and ALEJANDRA XANIC von BERTRAB
Published: December 17, 2012
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The Times’s examination reveals that Wal-Mart de Mexico was not the reluctant victim of a corrupt culture that insisted on bribes as the cost of doing business. Nor did it pay bribes merely to speed up routine approvals. Rather, Wal-Mart de Mexico was an aggressive and creative corrupter, offering large payoffs to get what the law otherwise prohibited. It used bribes to subvert democratic governance — public votes, open debates, transparent procedures. It used bribes to circumvent regulatory safeguards that protect Mexican citizens from unsafe construction. It used bribes to outflank rivals.
Through confidential Wal-Mart documents, The Times identified 19 store sites across Mexico that were the target of Wal-Mart de Mexico’s bribes. The Times then matched information about specific bribes against permit records for each site. Clear patterns emerged. Over and over, for example, the dates of bribe payments coincided with dates when critical permits were issued. Again and again, the strictly forbidden became miraculously attainable.
Thanks to eight bribe payments totaling $341,000, for example, Wal-Mart built a Sam’s Club in one of Mexico City’s most densely populated neighborhoods, near the Basílica de Guadalupe, without a construction license, or an environmental permit, or an urban impact assessment, or even a traffic permit. Thanks to nine bribe payments totaling $765,000, Wal-Mart built a vast refrigerated distribution center in an environmentally fragile flood basin north of Mexico City, in an area where electricity was so scarce that many smaller developers were turned away.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/business/walmart-bribes-teotihuacan.html
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The same old habits just do not go AWAY. Greed, big money and the GOP go hand in hand.
I did shop at a walmart in PORTA VARARTA in Mexico. The place was right across the street from where visiting tourist ships dock. The influx of money from visiting people and other since the parking lot was full and shaded.
This information should be public information
