http://www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21636420-more-problems-are-being-revealed-brazils-oil-giant-coming-down-bump
The Brazillian oil giant Petrobras has apparently been funding both specific political agendas and laundering illegal money. This has been brought to light in recent publications resulting in a scandal and the head of the company resigning in 2012, the new head has apparently been doing the same thing. Due to how big of a financial influence this company has on Brazil it is worrying that the company has a 125 Billion dollar debt which led to it being downgraded by important rating agencies. The future of the company is uncertain and it is not known how this will affect the 2016 olympics.
I personally think that having the level of corruption being revealed within this company is despicable and unfortunately having a company this large fail would be a big hit on Brazil's economy that they probably can't easily afford. As far as the large debt, that can be dealt with after the economy is jump-started by the 2016 Olympics.
Brazil seems to be a country that may need a good amount of reformation in the near future. From taking an intro to latin american history course to reading this post it seems like corruption has played a huge role in how their economy runs. It also may contribute to the large income gap that they have.
ReplyDeleteI find it very interesting how Petrobras executives, rather than deny guilt, focus their attention on the intentions of Ms. Velosa for going public with her evidence of corruption within the company. Does it matter what reason pushed Ms. Velosa over the edge, and that led her to take the step from simply reporting the corruption to her bosses (who did nothing), to taking her information outside the company?
ReplyDeleteAlso, many companies are significantly negatively impacted when corruption issues arise. I wonder if this will be the case with Petrobras.