Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Living in Peru
Vanessa Castro Chesterton

Sunday October 5th saw Cuarto Poder journalist Fernando Rospigliosi presenting the public with four different audio recordings of secretly obtained footage. On them former minister and parliament member Rómulo León Alegría and Perúpetro representative Alberto Quimper were taped discussing a deal designed to give Discover Petroleum International an unfair advantage. The identity of the person who leaked the recordings is unknown.

Quimper responded by questioning the authenticity of the recordings and by adding that the conversation was taken out of context and could be interpreted in many different ways.    

The intent behind León Alegría and Quimper’s supposed plan was to award Discover Petroleum International (DPI) with production licenses in exchange for money.

Daniel Saba, chief executive of Perúpetro, tried to make clear that the company’s name should not be tarnished by this seeing as it had no involvement in the actions of the accused individuals. Even though he claims that Perúpetro has never done anything but try to improve conditions it has been implicated in previous scandals involving the mishandling of funds during the Toledo administration.

DPI, a Norwegian oil company founded in March 2005, focuses on the exploration of new areas and reinvention of mature regions with the use of new technology to lessen the environmental impact and reduce risk. 

Five of the seventeen licenses quoted were granted to DPI for development. This raised some concern seeing as the company was relatively new and had a short financial track-record giving it the lowest score in the pre-qualification stage of the application. 

The Norwegian company however denies any allegations of misconduct and demands a full examination of the facts. It states that the application process in order to obtain oil production licenses was nothing if not transparent and could not have been influenced by bribes of any kind. In a public statement posted the company goes on to explain that in March 2008 DPI was invited by an associate in Mexico, who had established contact with a businessman from the Dominican Republic with development plans in Peru, to come and review the possibilities of applying for oil licenses. Though DPI had a limited financial history PetroPeru showed great interest in participating in a joint application with them and so they managed to secure five of the seven licenses they petitioned.   

The four tapes said to incriminate León Alegría and Quimper were presented to Marlene Berrú, prosecutor for the Anticorruption Court. The Ministry of Justice also sent out a statement as notification of the Ministry of Energy and Mines’ decision to press charges against Romulo León Alegría, Alberto Quimper and Ernesto Arias Schereiber, legal representative of DPI, asking that arrest warrants be issued against them along with the seizure of their assets as a preventative measure in order for them to stay put. According to the audio tapes all three men would have received a monthly $ 10, 000 in order to manipulate the bidding process. The scandal has also forced Juan Valdivia, the Minister of Energy and Mines out of his job. Though he claims he knew nothing of what was going on he recognized he was responsible for the sector and that in light of recent events all that was left for him to do was resign. 

As a result of this former Perúpetro representative Alberto Quimper was hospitalized suffering from an episode of hypertension. Ex- minister León Alegría however was no where to be found and is believed to have fled in order to escape prosecution. Both men are being charged with conspiracy and bribing officials which may result in a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. The courts have stressed that urgent measures should be taken to insure the former ministers capture.

León Alegría was the minister of Fisheries and a congressman during President Garcia’s first term. Prior accusations of corruption saw him expelled from the Apra party in 1991 but he was re-instated in 1998. His daughter Luciana Leon, a member of congress herself gave an emotional statement saying she would vote for a full congressional investigation into the scandal.

The President of the Counsel of Ministers, Jorge Del Castillo denies having been involved in any illegal activity related to DPI or the individuals implicated in this case.  He assures that he has never made arrangements of an illegal nature with national or foreign businesses and rejected the allegations that León Alegría was to finance his candidature for public office.

Del Castillo added that he received a dinner invitation in July of 2008 and that upon arrival he met with Quimper, Arias Schereiber, León Alegría and a Norwegian businessman who expressed an interest in oil exploration. He alleges he simply informed the man of Peru’s political and judicial stability as well as the need to follow all which is decreed by the law.  He assures there was no mention of concessions for oil licenses.

Mean while congress has formed a special commission designated to investigate the circumstances under which licenses were given out by Petroperú and Perúpetro. Congressmen Daniel Abugattás (Nationalist Party), Miguel Guevara (APRA Party), Rafael Yamashiro (National Unity), Carlos Raffo (Fujomorist Parliament Group) y Edgar Reymundo (Popular Patriotic Unit) make up the comity. They will have 60 days to present a report on their findings.

The news of corruption involving officials taking bribes fueled union demonstrations. These marches which had been previously planned as peaceful demonstrations turned to riots in other parts of the country while in Lima the commotion was minimal. The slow reaction to corruption allegations by the government has created unrest in many parts of Peru sending President Garcia’s approval rate plummeting. The president has assured that the country’s betrayal by a state employee is considered as a very serious thing by the government and that measures will be taken in order to investigate the split of commissions and to purge any and all acts of corruption.

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1 Comments

# Martin says :
9 October, 2008 [ 06:53 ]

Who is DPI? Have they ever operated an oil & gas exploration and drilling program? Or was their objective to obtain "Lotes" and then sell them to other companies for an overriding royalty interest?

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