NGO: Venezuela is the most corrupt country in Latin America

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/121205/ngo-venezuela-is-the-most-corrupt-country-in-latin-america


Unlike Chile and Paraguay, whose corruption levels are the lowest in Latin America, Venezuela ranked among the most corrupt nations in the region, according to NGO Transparency International (TI) annual report, released in Germany on Wednesday.

Among the Latin American countries, Chile and Uruguay jointly ranked 20th. They are the least corrupt nations, obtaining 72 out of 100 points, which is highest level of transparency.
-----

Further on in the list, there is El Salvador, Jamaica, Panama and Peru, which jointly ranked 83rd, while Colombia ranked 94th; Argentina, 102nd, and both Bolivia and Mexico, 105th.

Way after Guatemala (113th), the Dominican Republic (118th), Nicaragua (130th), Honduras (133 rd), and Paraguay (150th), there comes Venezuela and Haiti, which ranked 165th, obtaining 19 points only. The two countries are just a few positions above Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia and Iraq, which were classified as the most corrupt nations worldwide.

[ocpagu]

1. Stopped reading here:

"Unlike Chile and Paraguay, whose corruption levels are the lowest in Latin America".

Want my 7 seconds back.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. you can read it again where Paraguay is farther down the list

obviously a mistake by the el Universal staff. they meant Uruguay. You can also just go to the TI website and read the report for yourself.

[ocpagu]

5. Transparency International won't convince me...

... that Paraguay has one of the least corrupted political systems in Latin America.

[Bacchus4.0]

7. no, its Uruguay my friend, it won't say Paraguay is n/t

s

[Tempest]

3. Transparency International refuses to comply with NGO law

"The Moscow office of the anti-corruption coalition Transparency International has issued a statement announcing its refusal to comply with the recently passed law on foreign agents. "

And the reason is because they don't want to have to be accountable for how they spend their money.

[Tempest]

4. USAID and NGO transparency: When in doubt, hide the data

http://aidwatchers.com/2010/08/usaid-and-ngo-transparency-when-in-doubt-hide-the-data/

[naaman fletcher]

6. Lol

Please stop with the CIA propaganda

[ocpagu]

8. Transparency international controversial reports on Venezuela

n 2008, TI attracted controversy by claiming in a report entitled Promoting Revenue Transparency that Venezuela's state-owned oil firm PDVSA had failed to disclose basic financial information such as their revenues and how much royalties they paid, and had not produced properly audited accounts.[3] As a result, the report gave PDVSA the lowest possible ranking in assessing the oil companies in 42 different countries, and ranking them according to whether they were of high, medium or low transparency.[4]
In fact, the report was incorrect, and all the data was publicly available, leading to claims of a bias by TI against the Venezuelan government.

When questioned about the apparently biased report, TI initially claimed that information was not available at the time of publication – a claim which was also false - and then refused to answer further questions about the matter.
The data in TI's report was gathered by Mercedes de Freitas, the head of their Caracas bureau and a longtime opponent of President Hugo Chávez. De Freitas' previous job was running a US government funded opposition "civil society" group, the Fundacion Momento de la Gente, which is subsidized by National Endowment for Democracy, a US government agency.

Transparency international links with Venezuelan coup plotters

According to a report in the UK's Guardian newspaper, "TI's Venezuela bureau is staffed by opponents of the Venezuelan government. The directors include Robert Bottome, the publisher of Veneconomia, a strident opposition journal, and Aurelio Concheso of the Centre for the Dissemination of Economic Knowledge, a conservative think tank funded by the US government. Concheso was previously a director of the employers' organisation, Fedecamaras. The president of Fedecamaras, Pedro Carmona, led the failed 2002 coup and was briefly installed as Venezuela's dictator."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Transparency_International#cite_note-2

[Tempest]

9. Thank you for the citations.

Apparently you know to do your homework before posting, unlike the originating poster.

[ocpagu]

10. And thank you for your links too.

TI has been largely questioned in recent years. It's no longer time to accept these "rankings" published by huge NGOs with obscure funding sources, self-proclaimed as authorities in the areas they and their patrons are interested.

[Tempest]

11. Same thing happened in another forum

Originating poster made a post with a claim that couldn't stand up to scrutiny. They ended up closing the forum without issuing an apology or acknowledgement of their bias.

I suspect the originating poster here won't acknowledge the accusations being leveled against the NGO they are sourcing.

[reorg]

12. TI is not a NGO

their funding sources are not obscure at all, though. The vast majority of grants come from governments, some from major foundations, a limited amount from very large firms (BP, Shell, EADS etc.) - small donations from individuals only amount to 0.1 percent:

Donors 2011 (in Euro)

Governmental Agencies: 19,931,392
Foundations: 1,023,869
Other development Organisations: 418,122
Corporate Donors: 585,595
Individual Donors: 20,659
Total: 21,979,637

http://www.transparency.org/files/content/ouraccountability/TIS_2011AuditedFinancials.pdf
http://www.transparency.org/whoweare/accountability/who_supports_us/1/

TI was originally founded with grants from the German Development Agency GTZ (government money), USAID and the Ford foundation. Their directors are former high level officials in large government agencies and international bodies such as the World Bank. I happen to know, for instance, that Mr Elshorst, TI director from 1998-2002 was previously with the German Development Agency GTZ (CEO from 1974 to 1995) and the World Bank (1996-1997).

[Catherina]

13. All we need to know about these parasites is that in 2005, Enron was their official sponsor

Enron lol! TI is funded by the most corrupt companies through the world to "fight corruption".

Thanks to you and ocpagu for bringing some sanity into this thread.

Thick as thieves

by Christian de Brie
Le Monde Diplomatique

By allowing capital to flow unchecked from one end of the world to the other, globalisation and abandon of sovereignty have together fostered the explosive growth of an outlaw financial market. Indeed the engine of capitalist expansion is now oiled by the profits of serious crime. From time to time something is done to give the impression of waging war on the rapidly expanding banking and tax havens. If governments really wanted to, they could right this overnight. But though there are calls for zero tolerance of petty crime and unemployment, nothing is being done about the big money crimes.

...

Better still, under the aegis of international financial crime’s number one partner, the US, we are seeing a rationalisation, or rather, Americanisation, of corruption techniques, seeking to replace the somewhat archaic practices of palm-greasing and secret (or open) "commission" payments by lobbying, which is more effective and presentable. It is a service industry in which the Americans have a considerable lead over their competitors, not only in know-how, but also in the vast financial and logistical resources they are able to make available to their multinationals; these include the secret services of the world’s most powerful state apparatus, which, with the cold war over, have moved into economic warfare.

This is evidenced by the media success of the publication of an annual league table of bribe paying and taking countries drawn up by Transparency International, a lobbying association and CIA correspondent funded by governments and corporations, especially American ones, that are experts in the matter. These include Lockheed, Boeing, IBM, General Motors, Exxon, General Electric and Texaco (13). The only objective of the anti-corruption campaigns taken up by international organisations (World Bank, IMF, OECD) is the "good governance" of a financial crime that is now an integral part of market globalisation under the leadership of the American democracy, the most corrupt on the planet.

The headlong rush for profits and capital accumulation by any means is reflected in the widespread robbery of the fruits of men’s labour and of common wealth and the moral corruption of the ruling classes. The robber barons are giving way to the pillaging princes.

http://mondediplo.com/2000/04/05debrie

[ocpagu]

20. Great definition.

"Better still, under the aegis of international financial crime’s number one partner, the US, we are seeing a rationalisation, or rather, Americanisation, of corruption techniques, seeking to replace the somewhat archaic practices of palm-greasing and secret (or open) "commission" payments by lobbying, which is more effective and presentable. It is a service industry in which the Americans have a considerable lead over their competitors, not only in know-how, but also in the vast financial and logistical resources they are able to make available to their multinationals; these include the secret services of the world’s most powerful state apparatus, which, with the cold war over, have moved into economic warfare."

It's so easy to "end" corruption by turning it legal and mainstream... "come here and buy the senator you prefer, worry not about the press, lobby is "freedom of expression". LOL.

[Tempest]

14. "their funding sources are not obscure at all, though"

Really?

Then why are they ignoring Russian law and won't open their books?

What are they hiding?

Besides their funding from oil and energy companies and other predatory capitalists, that is?

[reorg]

16. I suspect they don't want to disclose their contacts

in Russia. They don't represent "civil society", they represent the "Washington Consensus" and are directly funded by Western governments. I'm not surprised that foreign governments are curious who provides them with information.

[naaman fletcher]

17. I'm all for discussing TI

And there is a lot of good data in this thread to suggest a pro-western corporate bias.

However, their ignoring this russian law is probably an example of integrity on their part. I don't know how you get thist to be some sort of negative mark

[reorg]

18. easy

Last edited Mon Apr 8, 2013, 12:54 PM - Edit history (1)

If any of these government agencies that finance TI were to carry out this project directly, they'd have to be working on the basis of a bilateral agreement. The countries they are working in would have to be kept informed about and approve what they are doing. The donor states and their agencies don't have an "integrity" problem when asked to open the books on such bilateral projects, on the contrary, it is a requirement that what they do is open and transparent to partner countries.

Why should it be any different for TI?

Because they falsely label themselves a "non"-governmental organization? They are not, it's a multilateral technical assistance project without formal approval.

http://www.transparency.org/whoweare/accountability/who_supports_us/1/

Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional (AECID)
Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID)
Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)
Comunidad de Madrid
Department for International Development (DFID)
Federal Foreign Office, Germany
Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany
Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU), Germany
Financial Mechanism Office (FMO), EEA and Norway Grants
French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs
Irish Aid
Kingdom of Belgium Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation
Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Finland
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands
New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD)
Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA)
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
The Office of The National Anti-Corruption Commission, Thailand
US Agency for International Development

Also interesting in this context:

Foreign Agents Registration Act

The act requires people and organizations that are under foreign control ("agents of a foreign principal&quot to register with the Department of Justice when acting in any capacity, even if only indirectly controlled, on behalf of a foreign principal. It also requires periodic disclosure of all activities and finances.

[joshcryer]

15. Once the ICIJ Venezuela documents come to light...

...no one will be able to question Venezuela's corruption.

But they can turn a blind eye to it if they want. It's only going to lead to the downfall of chavismo.

For chavismo to succeed the corruption must be dealt with.

[Bacchus4.0]

19. I thought corruption was chavismo

buying votes from the people in order to enrich themselves.

[ocpagu]

21. Nope.

That would be the American congress. But they don't buy votes, they sell them.

[Bacchus4.0]

22. what's chavismo then?

establish an economy based on one commodity, have no criminal justice system, ignore violent crime, commit to corruption, lie incessantly, run the nation from Havana, stifle free speech, and buy votes?

what's your view?

[joshcryer]

23. Social spending is not buying votes.

Republicans would claim that because many people on welfare vote Democratic that their votes are bought and paid for since Democrats provide and defend welfare. In fact last election they were spouting nonsense about how the Democrats were giving away free phones (there's a really racist video you can find about that; clearly the woman was alluding to phone assistance likely provided by the state, and not necessarily by Democrats but possibly other charity organizations).

It is wrong to accuse chavismo of "buying votes." The timing of the spending, of course, is unethical, since it tends to be timed around election time, and not throughout the entire years leading up to elections. And the Tascon List shows that chavista favorability for jobs and other services is totally unethical and wrong. But these are separate issues entirely.

Chavismo, as an ideology, is not necessarily corrupt, but for it to run, it's used corrupt elements.