CICIG, CICIG the tax collector!

“Maximus, Maximus the merciful!”

From Deutsche Welle, we have Intimate of Guatemala president charged with corruption.

Authorities have accused the son-in-law-to-be of Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina of greasing wheels for an energy company and collecting a tidy profit while doing so. Prosecutors say Gustavo Martinez, a former secretary-general of the presidency, trafficked in influence, along with Ramos Rodas Solares, who had served as energy and mines minister for seven days in May before also being arrested on Thursday. Authorities also detained others for complicity, including a woman believed to have collected the money for Martinez, drawing a fake salary from a firm called Jaguar Energy.

The UN-backed International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) reported that Martinez, the ex-minister and two others had taken advantage of their posts to sell favors. Ivan Velasquez, commissioner of the CICIG, said Martinez had helped set up meetings for Jaguar Energy in exchange for payments worth at least $120,000 (108,000 euros) over a six-month period that ended in January.

Martinez, 56, left his job in June to "not exhaust" the government with negative attention.

Prosecutors say Martinez took the bribes to help remove legal and environmental barriers to the $900 million power station Jaguar Energy is building - the region's biggest. Lawyers representing Martinez did not immediately comment, nor did Jaguar Energy, a subsidiary of the US company Ashmore Energy International.

Yes, an intimate. Okay, this one is going to sting those Guatemalans (particularly on the right) who feel that CICIG is a violation of the country's sovereignty and that CICIG and the MP's office have been purposefully avoiding any investigation into the so-called non-violent protests against extractive industries operating in the country. Instead, CICIG and the MP's office have gone after government officials allegedly involved in greasing the wheels of bureaucratic hurdles places in front of business.

Given how much money has been diverted from the government and productive use in Guatemala, it sure does look as if the US should condition an increase in aid on Honduras and El Salvador's acceptance of similar international commissions against impunity. We seem to have hundreds of millions of dollars missing in Guatemala. While we should expect more money stolen in Guatemala because of the size of its economy relative to El Salvador and Honduras, I imagine we'd be able to find a few hundred million dollars missing in those countries as well.

The international community could do worse than helping Poor countries [need to] get better at raising tax, and multinational firms [need to] get better at paying it.

Who could be against keeping taxes relatively low but improving the collection of those that are supposed to be paid?