Guatemala is your off the shelf banana republic. A small agricultural (coffee, sugar, bananas) central American nation with a poor governance record, from Transparency International:
Today, however, it schools Australia on what to do when corruption takes a hold of a central bank and its business affiliates, from Reuters:
Guatemala’s central bank governor was arrested on Wednesday in a bribery probe that also targeted a former aide of President Otto Perez, who has faced mounting pressure since his vice president quit two weeks ago over a separate graft scandal.
The Guatemalan attorney general’s office said it had arrested central bank chief Julio Suarez, and issued an arrest warrant for Juan de Dios Rodriguez, Perez’s former personal secretary and head of the Guatemalan Social Security Institute.
The office said Suarez, who has a seat on the institute’s board, had been arrested along with 14 others over a $14.5 million medical services contract awarded by the institute. The charges include fraud, influence trafficking and charging illegal commission, prosecutors said.
Ivan Velasquez of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a United Nations-backed group working with prosecutor’s on the case, said investigations that began last year found that the contract was rigged in favor of a pharmaceutical company. “We have very coherent evidence to show that the members of the tendering board took illegal steps,” Velasquez said.
…President Perez said he welcomed the investigation.
“Nobody is above the law,” Perez said in a televised address. “I’m the first one to regret that these situations are occurring and the first to demand that justice is served.”
Nobody is above the law. Hmm, well, in Australia, we have a much better transparency international record:
Yet, weirdly enough, we are all still waiting for a transparent investigation into our own central bank’s dodgy dealings vis it’s affiliate businesses. Indeed, the entire issue has been given concrete boots and let sink to the very bottom of the deepest abyss in Sydney Harbour.
Spot the banana republic!
