In all the coverage of Brazil and the World Cup in the UK media – and at times it’s felt overwhelming, even to those of us who have longed argued that the world’s media comes close to ignoring the world’s fifth largest country – one important theme has been completely overlooked. And, for those with eyes to see it, it’s an issue that has been very evident.
There was a great deal of coverage over whether or not the new stadiums would be finished on time, something that the press has gone quiet on, now that the matches so far have gone off without any major hitch. But little attention was paid to the companies that were benefiting from Brazil’s spending frenzy.
Commentators have nicknamed Brazil’s four largest construction companies – Odebrecht, OAS, Camargo Corrêa and Andrade Gutierrez – the Four Sisters, following the example of Enrico Mattei, then-head of the Italian state oil company Eni, who in the 1950s coined the term Seven Sisters to describe the cartel of oil companies who dominated the global petroleum industry.
According to research carried out by LAB partner Pública, Brazil’s Four Sisters have won most of the work in all ten of the biggest infrastructure contracts awarded for the World Cup and the Olympics. The work includes the rebuilding of the Maracanã stadium, the construction of the Olympic Park and Line 4 of the Rio Metro. These ten contracts were worth almost R$30bn (£8bn).
Odebrecht is the champion: it won a large share of all eight of the ten contracts. OAS and Andrade Gutierrez came joint second, with a strong presence in six of the ten contracts. For further details, in Portuguese, go to Pública’s website. Often it seems that the cake is being divided up between the big boys.
The names of the same four companies turn up with monotonous regularity in the awards for work in Brazil’s vast scheme for hydroelectric dam expansion in the Amazon. And again the names rotate.
The way the cake has been divided between the Four Sisters has, not surprisingly, raised suspicions among some economists. Paulo Furquim, a former member of the Administrative Council of Economic Defence (CADE), the body that enacts Brazil’s anti-trust legislation, commented: “These situations with big projects, particularly the formation of consortia and alternating winners, provide considerable evidence of the existence of a cartel. Additional evidence of over-billing gives us a sufficient motive for an investigation.”
Indeed, investigations were carried out with respect to the São Paulo metro, with the companies forced to pay the authorities compensation of R$2.5bn (£670m). But there is little to suggest that the system itself has been reformed, with many believing that the cartel is still alive and well.
Previous article
Next article
Recent World Cup Football Blog Posts
- Last thoughts on the Cup? Who can we blame?
- CLACSO’s World Cup Notebook
- São Paulo Fan Friendly
- We was robbed (again)…
- Girls in Play: Sexual exploitation and the World Cup