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| In this Nov. 18, 2011 photo, a man pays at the cash register at a Wal-Mart Superstore in Mexico City. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. hushed up a vast bribery campaign that top executives of its Mexican subsidiary carried out to build stores across Mexico, according to a published report by the New York Times. (AP Photo) |
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Mexico
City. Claims that US retail giant Wal-Mart used payoffs to speed zoning and
other permits in its break-neck Mexican expansion is sparking soul-searching in
Mexico, where crowded government offices are the working grounds of shadowy
facilitators known as “gestores.”
Front-running
presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto told The Associated Press in an
interview Monday that “there is a truly critical situation in the country.”
He said he
thinks an independent governmental anti-corruption commission is needed to root
out the bribes and payoffs that many say have become as common as paying a
light bill, and sometimes easier.
“This is an
endemic vice, a vice that leads us nowhere,” Pena Nieto said.
According
to a New York Times report, Wal-Mart executives turned to middlemen in the
early 2000s to grease the way for building up the company’s Mexican subsidiary,
which has become its biggest foreign operation.
Whether at
least $8.5 million that was apparently paid to gestores actually wound up as
bribes for corrupt local officials remains to be seen. The Times also said an
additional $16 million went directly to officials.
Wal-Mart
Stores Inc. says it is conducting its own investigation, and two US congressmen
announced they are opening a probe. The Mexican federal government announced
Monday evening that it had no jurisdiction in the case because the report
referred only to the involvement of state and city officials.
Many
Mexicans wouldn’t be surprised if the claims are true.
A visit to
any government office is likely to bring the sighting of a well-dressed man
carrying reams of documents who will glide past the long lines, shake hands
with the official behind the counter and get ushered into a backroom, where his
affairs presumably get a fast-track service. The suspicion is these go-betweens
funnel a portion of the fees they charge clients to corrupt officials to smooth
the issuance of permits, approvals and other government stamps.
In a
country where laws on zoning rules, construction codes and building permits are
vague or laxly enforced, the difference between opening a store quickly and
having it held up for months may depend on using a gestor.
“Nobody is
exempted” from the demands for bribes, said Mexico City security consultant Max
Morales, who advises companies on everything from building projects to security
against kidnappings. “Even the big American companies are subject to
extortion.”
There is
none bigger than Wal-Mart de Mexico, which is the nation’s largest retailer and
private employer and opened a store a day last year. Corrupt officials “see
money, and they exploit you and exploit you, and the first thing you know they
try to close you ... as a way to exert pressure,” Morales said.
The
watchdog group Transparency International puts Mexico a low No. 100 on its 2011
list that ranks 183 countries by the perception of their level of corruption.
On a scale with 10 as the least corrupt, Mexico rates only a 3 — the lowest for
any OECD nation and a tie with countries like Suriname and Indonesia.
The
pressure of corruption in Mexico is so great that some companies have
reportedly opted to leave.
Morales
said security and corruption concerns played a role in the 2005 decision by
French retailer Carrefour to sell its operations in Mexico. Asked if that was
true, Carrefour’s press department responded in an email: “Carrefour Group
doesn’t comment on this information.”
Wal-Mart’s
competitors in Mexico, the other large supermarket chains, all refused to talk
about the scandal. “It is a very delicate issue,” said Jesus Antonio Velazquez,
spokesman for the Chedraui chain.
The only
people willing to comment were operators of small markets and mom-and-pop
grocery stores. They said Wal-Mart was able to put stores where they shouldn’t
have been allowed, and they saw something fishy in the company’s rapid
expansion that has given it 2,138 stores in Mexico.
“It was so
evident,” said Alfredo Neme Martinez, who leads a Latin American association of
wholesale market vendors. “They would buy three lots on a corner, and open
right away.”
In a
statement, Wal-Mart said the bribery accusations, “if they are true, do not
reflect the culture of Wal-Mart Mexico and Central America.” The company said
it would not comment further because of the investigations.
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