Suspended trials and none accused of corruption: the Venezuela-Odebrecht judicial war

Three Odebrecht lawsuits against Venezuela were suspended this month, while the state maintains a trial against the construction company. Six years after the outbreak of the bribery scandal of the Brazilian company, there are no accused of corruption in this South American country.

Without explanation, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) announced on its website the suspension “until further notice” of the hearings of the three lawsuits against the second country that received the most bribes from the construction giant, some $98 million, according to former president Marcelo Odebrecht, sentenced to 19 years in prison in Brazil.

These hearings were scheduled from 10 to 17 March.

Works such as the Mercosur bridge, which would link Guárico (center) and Bolivar (south) states; a second bridge over Lake Maracaibo, in Zulia (northwest); and a railway system to link Caracas with neighboring La Guaira and Guatire, were left unfinished.

From a flat on the Orinoco River or from a car on the highway as you leave Caracas, you can see the giant concrete pillars of these abandoned projects.

Most were agreed during the administration of the late former president Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), which strengthened relations with Brazil by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula, 2003-2010) -also dotted by scandal-, amid an oil boom that ended in 2014, with his successor, Nicolás Maduro, in power.

The Odebrecht scandal, which exploded in 2016, involved politicians and officials from 12 Latin American countries — including presidents and former presidents — who received hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes in exchange for public contracts on the continent. No official, by contrast, has been charged in Venezuela.

- “He never abandoned the works” -

After the scandal broke out, the Venezuelan government unilaterally suspended its contracts with Odebrecht and raided its facilities.

Maduro says that the works were “illegally abandoned by Odebrecht”, which the construction company denies.

Odebrecht, which has become synonymous with corruption on the continent and changed its name to Novonor, demands that the decision to suspend contracts be annulled and allowed to complete the works.

“It is important to clarify that CNO [Constructora Norberto Odebrecht] never abandoned the works it was carrying out in Venezuela. What happened was that all works contracts have been unilaterally terminated by the various state customers,” Novonor told AFP.

According to the NGO Transparencia Venezuela, there was a cessation of payments of valuations” in 2016, at a time of deep crisis, which “made the work impossible”.

Transparencia Venezuela indicated in 2018 that Odebrecht completed only nine out of 33 contracted works and that the Venezuelan State had paid the conglomerate more than $13 billion for 18 of them.

Former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz said, out of office, that this amount actually amounted to $30 billion.

- “Earth in the eyes” -

Maduro has repeatedly promised that he will finish the Brazilian company's projects, although there is still no timeline.

“Odebrecht would throw dirt in one's eyes, as they are the only ones who can build an elevated, a tower, we can do that,” he said at an official ceremony last September.

For his part, the Minister of Transport, Hipolito Abreu, declared to the state channel VTV that all the works were “without plans, without designs”, so a work of “engineering” and “reengineering” was started to complete them now.

At the same time, while Odebrecht's lawsuits were suspended, a trial by the state-run Metro de Caracas against the construction company for the failure to comply with a project of 2,400 homes that were also not built, with 76 million dollars of investment, according to judgments of the TSJ.

The highest Venezuelan court, whose last ruling on the case was last September, has asked for clarification and evaluates evidence.

Former Brazilian President Lula was convicted in the Odebrecht case, although his sentence was overturned. Former Vice President of Ecuador Jorge Glas and former Minister of Works of the Dominican Republic Victor Díaz Rúa were also sentenced to prison, as former Peruvian president Ollanta Humala faces trial.

Nothing like that happens in Venezuela. Attorney General Tarek William Saab said in an interview with AFP in 2017 that allegations would be investigated and ruled out opening a file against Maduro, accused by his predecessor in the Public Ministry.

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