Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ordered extraordinary payments of up to 4,000 million dollars for Odebrecht works in 2013 in response to contributions from the Brazilian construction company to its electoral campaign, the newspaper Estadao reported on Sunday.
The information comes from reports and documents in the corruption investigation around Odebrecht, which involves several countries in Latin America. The papers in question are in the hands of prosecutors in Brazil and Venezuela, according to the newspaper.
According to the documents, Maduro deemed “very urgent” the execution of payments that were not included in the Venezuelan official budget, in return for the contributions that the Brazilian giant would have made to the electoral campaign of Hugo Chávez’s successor.
In exchange for USD 35 million for the 2013 campaign, the president [Maduro] would give ‘priority’ for extraordinary resources to cover Odebrecht works,”
said the newspaper.
Venezuelan Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, has ruled out opening an investigation against Maduro.
We are not going to work according to speculation,”
Saab told AFP last August, after his predecessor, Luisa Ortega Díaz, who fled abroad after breaking up with Maduro, declared that she had “evidence” against the president and close collaborators.
According to Estadao, the Brazilian Public Prosecutor’s Office obtained information from the testimonies of the former Odebrecht director in Venezuela, Euzenando Azevedo, and the advisers Mónica Moura and Joao Santana, linked to the presidential campaigns of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff in Brazil.
According to the documents, Maduro began releasing the extraordinary payments for Odebrecht’s works less than a month after being elected in April 2013. The extension of the Caracas metro and a cable car were in the package.
The Odebrecht scandal led to last week’s resignation of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to the presidency of Peru, and also sprinkled his predecessors Ollanta Humala, arrested more than eight months ago, and Alejandro Toledo, who weighs a request for extradition to the United States.
It also led to the dismissal and conviction of Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas. In Brazil, the scandal took dozens of executives to jail, including the group’s executive director, Marcelo Odebrecht, and it affected other politicians including former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010).