RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Entrepreneur Marcelo Odebrecht gave his first interview to journalist Bruna Narcizo, from Folha de S.Paulo, after four years in prison, and pointed out the damage caused by Operation Lava Jato to the image of Brazil and to Brazilian companies.
“The way Lava Jato was disclosed eventually made it seem that Brazil is the most corrupt country in the world and that Brazilian companies exported corruption. That’s not true – neither one thing nor the other. But our competitors in the world knew how to take advantage of it. Several countries blame Odebrecht. This is an issue that we will have to overcome,” he said.
Marcelo Odebrecht also made a point of defending BNDES (Brazil’s Economic and Social Development Bank), against the accusation that it was a [non-transparent] black box, and spoke in detail about the financing to Cuba for the construction of the port of Mariel. “Even before Lava Jato, none of our projects were defaulted [a term used in the economy as a synonym for non-compliance with payment agreements].
“No government that we were operating has ever defaulted. It was something that we were keen to monitor because we knew we could kill the goose laying golden eggs. That’s why we monitored matters closely. Now, after Lava Jato, with the destruction of our image abroad, it became difficult for us to monitor governments so that the financing could be paid,” he said.
“For instance, the issue concerning the port of Mariel in Cuba. They are saying that Cuba is defaulting with Brazil. But look at what Brazil had to pay for the Mais Médicos (More Doctors) program [under the agreement, the Brazilian government paid only a percentage to the professionals, the remainder was sent to the Cuban government]. It was less than what Cuba had to pay Brazil. Then Brazil puts an end to the Mais Médicos program. In other words, Brazil ended the source of funds that helped Cuba pay the funding”.
“If we were the Odebrecht from before Lava Jato, at the moment we realized that the government was threatening the More Doctors program, we would have used our influence to try to maintain the program. Not on top of anything illicit, but by proving to the government that the program was going to pay the funding that Cuba got from Brazil. In a way, we lost this ability to negotiate. We helped so that the geopolitics of countries would be very fluid,” he said.
Source: Brasil 247