The notion of a corrupt nation often conjures up images of a poor or developing country. But corruption can be equally rife in developed countries and it is.

Corruption is widespread and is deeply embedded in the economic and political system worldwide. But the mechanisms of combating corruption, beyond having a sound and independent judiciary, depend very much on the strength or weaknesses of the institutions as well as on the existence of political will.

One would immediately have thought about Brazil, with its huge Lava Jato (Car Wash) scheme and the Odebrecht scandal, with tentacles affecting most Latin American countries and reaching out as far as Angola in Africa. Yet, a country that illustrates how corruption also affects the developed world is Portugal.

The complacency at the heart of the Portuguese system as well as its prejudiced attitude towards people of colour, have combined to make the former colonial power a hub for financial crimes. Crimes that are depriving some of the world’s poorest people of their wealth.

Nowhere in Portugal’s sphere of influence is this more obvious than in its tortured relationship with the African nation of Angola. Lisbon’s greedy demand for riches has allowed Luanda to wreak havoc. Having embezzled Angola as a colony for 400 years (1575 to 1975), Portugal today aids and abets the country’s best efforts to plunder itself. On top, it can be argued that there is a clear link between Portugal’s permissiveness of corruption and its racism.

Corruption at home

A 2015 Ernst & Young survey found that 83% of Portuguese believed that corruption and bribery were widespread in the country. In 2019, Portugal ranked below the European Union (EU) average in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index.

Former Angolan Prime Minister Jose Socrates, who held the post from 2005 to 2011, was arrested for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion after leaving office. He was found to have €20 million in a Swiss bank account, and to have brought this money back into the country via a law called ‘Extraordinary procedure of reliant regularisation.’ This law was in effect a tax evasion pardon – a law Socrates personally passed in 2009. Even by dire global standards, this was considered a to be a massive scandal.