Halliburton Bribed Nigeria
Oil company greases palm of entire country
RAND McNALLY
Nigeria, living high off the oil money hog, can apparently afford a sharper yellow than surrounding African nations.
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Another blow, and not the good kind, for oil giant Halliburton, the company once ran by Dick Cheney and now just thrown big contract bonuses by the Vice-President: The company admitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission Thursday that it paid a direct bribe to the country of Nigeria for favorable tax status in 2001 and 2002.
The payments totaling 2.4 million were revealed in a filing with the SEC to be a bribe to receive preferential tax treatment and, according to Halliburton, “clearly violated our code of business conduct.” For a company that welcomes no-bid multimillion-dollar contracts by former CEOs in prime political positions, it means the act of bribing a whole nation must have been especially nasty.
The periodic payments were left in a briefcase in a basement of an industrial complex in Nigeria’s neighbor Cameroon. According to Nigerian insiders, the population of the country would sneak into Cameroon late at night when its residents were asleep, pick up the briefcase and count out the money evenly before returning, leaving the rest of the world none of the wiser.
An informant at the SEC said the Commission became suspicious when Halliburton and its subsidiaries started receiving extremely beneficial tax status, coinciding with the purchase of a large number of sports cars by Nigerian residents. The small African nation also purportedly put a generous down payment on a piece of California beachfront property that raised eyebrows at the SEC.
University of Maine African Studies Professor Djimon Mubatu said those familiar with Nigeria questioned some recent developments that pointed to bribery.
“When a country’s population is wearing Goodwill jeans and league bowling shirts on Sunday and then all spontaneously start wearing Gucci suits and carrying Prada bags on Monday, it does constitute suspicious behavior,” said Dr. Mubatu. “Bribery isn’t the first thing to cross your mind—the last time we saw something like that was when Colombia started dealing drugs back in 1981. Then, Nigeria’s kissing Halliburton ass like it’s a statue of the Virgin Mary, you start to get the idea.”
Punishment for Halliburton was being decided by the SEC at press time, but initial thoughts on how to penalize Nigeria began almost immediately. Some in Congress and the White House worry that allowing them to escape penalty will set a bad example for other Third World countries to accept bribes from other big beltway companies.
“Our first idea was to allow our corporations free access into the country to strip its natural resources for company profit and repay their people in the lowest wages possible,” said Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld, “but then we realized we had already been doing that for quite a while. More than likely we’re looking at the idea of imposing ridiculous sanctions that only cause real harm to the poorest and most dependent citizens, leaving the wealthy and government officials basically untouched. Or failing that, military overthrow, but if we decide to go that route we’ll probably wait until around, let’s say, November of 2004.”
The government may be dragging its heels on its chastisement of the previously-impoverished company, but others are already expressing dismay. If documentation can prove Nigeria’s new wealth is a result of Halliburton bribery, officials from USA for Africa say they want all their proceeds given to the country from sales of “We Are the World” returned immediately.
the commune news reminds everyone it’s only a bribe if you get something in return; if you don’t, it’s a rip-off. Ramon Nootles has recently been promoted to financial scandal correspondent, since he believes so much in Deep Throat’s advice to “follow the money”—or maybe it’s another Deep Throat he’s been quoting.
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