(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
A former unit of US conglomerate Halliburton agreed to pay 579 million dollars in criminal and civil penalties to settle a long probe into bribery in Nigeria, US officials said Wednesday.
Authorities said the agreement represented the second largest fine ever in connection with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Kellogg Brown & Root LLC pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges related to “its participation in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials” to obtain contracts, the Justice Department said.
SOURCE: http://rawstory.com/news/afp/K…
What else is new? KBR is still getting huge contracts from the US military in Iraq, while soldiers are being electrocuted by defective KBR-installed wiring. This is a familiar pattern. Big corporations get away with massive corruption by fingering a scapegoat and paying fines, then the corruption starts all over again. The article about the Nigerian payoffs neglects to point out that Dirty Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton while this scheme was being hatched. In how many companies can millions of dollars in bribes be paid without the knowledge of the CEO?
It is time for America to apply its enthusiasm for capital punishment to corporations. Corporation charters can not only be granted by government; they can be revoked. Congress should immediately pass legislation mandating the de-chartering and dissolution of any corporation whose officers have repeatedly been convicted of corrupt practices. This would do much more to reform our corruption-riddled country than the ritual wrist-slaps our courts are currently administering in the name of “justice.”
2 comments
While American imperialists and the American military/industrial complex is mostly to blame for the behavior of contractors like KBR, many NATO allies are also greatly responsible.
No small number of mercenaries and contractors being used to circumvent the Geneva Convention and international law hail from British, Scandinavian, South American and South African corporations. Indeed, most of the rats are jumping off the sinking American ship as fast as they can find another port of call. Halliburton is headquartered in Dubai now. “Blackwater USA” is now “Blackwater International”.
This is not strictly an American problem, and never really has been. Prescott Bush set the example when it came to jumping across international borders to facilitate his dirty work. All those who came after are doing is following in his footsteps.
The heart and soul of the problem lies with the military intelligence arm of the US government. Clean out THAT Augean Stable and you’ll see an end to a great amount of the stench, but probably never all of it.