It all ends in pizza: corruption in Brazil and other places.

I've only run up against corruption a few times and thankfully only once in business, more of that later, but probably the most blatant example of a straight bribe was when I was leaving Havana to fly to Jamaica about twenty years ago. As I queued for passport control I saw you had to enter a very small private booth to show your passport – I soon found out why.

As the grinning official looked at my passport and glanced up at me, he said in a thick Spanish accent, "You like leave Cuba fast way or slow way?". 

"What's the difference?," I replied.

"Fast way you pay me $20, you make flight, slow way you not pay and I think you miss flight signor".

What could I do?  There was no right of appeal. I couldn't complain. I couldn't call the police and anyway they were probably equally corrupt – this man was God in the airport. I didn't feel good about it but I paid my $20 and made my flight.

I was in the advertising agency business for over thirty years but only came across one example of what I considered to be corrupt and unethical practice, which I guess says a lot about doing business in the UK. 

It was in the mid-nineties and we were pitching to a multi-national company for a large and lucrative contract. It got down to us and another agency - we both already worked for the client but this would take us on to another level and involved promotion, merchandising and advertising in international airports. 

I can't quite remember why but I found myself leaving the client's offices at the same time as the CEO and owner of the other agency - who knows maybe he'd planned it that way. Now this chap was posh – he had once represented Britain in the Olympics in one of the more elite sports and was very 'public school' (which in the UK means private).  I was about to look for a taxi to head back in to town but he was keen to offer me a lift.

As we edged our way back in to the city, he turned to me and said, "You know old boy neither of us have to lose out with this contract."

He then proceeded to lay out a proposal that whoever won the business, we could both mutually benefit from the proceeds, and their needn't be a loser, although of course this would all be kept well hidden from the client."

I said nothing and let him do all the talking. We arrived at my drop off point and as I started to get out of the car,  I turned to him and said, "Not for me I'm afraid....old boy, may the best team win." 

We were the best team and we did win and I realise I've never revealed anything of this incident until writing this blog post today and as you may have noticed, I've been somewhat circumspect in naming names.


Which leads me to corruption and Brazil. I've been travelling to Brazil regularly since 1994 and the changes I've seen take place are truly remarkable. When I first went to Brazil, the currency was called the Cruzeiro, it was the latest in a long line of currencies which had to be introduced regularly to combat inflation running at 1000's of percent a year. No one wanted to take it, everyone preferred dollars. 

In fact I remember seeing an apartment for sale on the beach at Ipanema for $20,000. That same apartment today would be at least $3,000,000 and Ipanema ranks in prices with the Upper East Side or Mayfair – 20:20 hindsight, it's a wonderful thing!

There were really only two classes in Brazil back then: the super rich and everyone else and many of the 'everyone else' were very, very poor. Today a staggering 52% of the population has moved in to the middle-class and that means new cars, new homes, travel, holidays and Brazilians favourite pastimes - shopping and eating. Unfortunately greater disposable income and fast food means those bodies on Copacabana and Ipanema aren't quite as lithe and beautiful as they used to be. Oh yes the other thing Brazilians like to do is spend time on Facebook - it fits well with the out-going Brazilian personality and after the States they are the world's biggest user of the social network.

Their currency,  the Real (pronounced 'hayal') is so strong that a holiday in Brazil is now more like going to the South of France and Brazilians have been the number one buyers of property in Miami in the last few years and some of the highest spending shoppers in London and New York.

So what may you ask are they so upset about? What have all the protests been about? Aren't they pleased to be getting the Olympics and World Cup?

Well I think the answer is one word, corruption.

Corruption is woven in to the very fabric of Brazil, whether it be business, or politics, or the police, or simply getting a driving licence in Sao Paulo, or indeed just about anything. And this newly created middle-class are sick and tired of it! 

They are sick of seeing trials of corrupt politicians where the guilty never go to jail, they are sick of a quasi-military police force who are corrupt and answer to no one and they know full well that the billions spent on the Olympics and new football stadia will be lining many, many pockets and involve corruption from top to bottom.

And all this corruption gets in the way of what Brazil is crying out for: expenditure on infrastructure. New airports, new ports, new roads, new schools, new hospitals; in fact all those things middle class people around the world expect their governments to provide them with, yet Brazil, even in the boom period of the last ten years has spent less on infrastructure than any other emerging market. Why? Because corruption gets in the way.

But just maybe things are different this time. The recent protests and the ability of the newly established middle class to mobilise themselves through Facebook has shocked politicians and the Brazilian establishment. The scheduled rise in bus fares, which was the initial spark which got people on to the streets, has been reversed and the government are giving way on other ground including greater expenditure on infrastructure.

Brazilians have an expression, "Vai acabar em pizza', it literally means, "It all ends in pizza" but a more colloquial translation would be, it's all ends in zilch, zip, Jack Sh*t! It's an expression which is often used about corruption trials or indictment of politicians where there fail to be any consequences for the guilty.

Now it's a little know fact that Brazilians make the best pizza in the world - probably because of all those hundreds of thousands of Italians who emigrated there - but maybe over the next few years, it would be nice to think that things might start to end up in something other than pizza.