Liquor purchase case points to culture of corporate corruption
- Source: Global Times
- [22:32 April 27 2011]
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"Most of the luxury liquor Lu bought was used to bribe local authorities, as Sinopec's expansion strategies, such as opening new gas stations, preferential policies on transportation and tax, and even paying people off to overlook pollution, all require a benign connection with local authorities," he said.
"Keeping this ‘fragile' connection going is paid for through gifts. In other words, bribes."
The connection he mentioned points directly to the company's eagerness for further profits by extending its network amid growing competition with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), also State-owned oil giants.
But another source from Qilu Petrochemical Company Ltd, a Sinopec subordinate branch in Shandong Province, told the Global Times that Lu might have been unwilling to pay such bribes, but was forced to pander to greedy local officials.
"Most of the cases involve local officials working where the SOEs are based asking us to bribe them to show our gratitude for their help. After all, they are the local villains, and we have to meet their needs before things get complicated," a high-ranking staff member at Qilu who only gave his surname Zhang, told the Global Times.
"That these cases unfolded in the company's Guangdong branch is peculiar, as local officials in Guangdong, which is praised as China's most vibrant private economy, do not rely heavily on tax revenues from SOEs," Zhang said.
Moutai budget
"Clearly, Lu is just a scapegoat," the Sinopec Beijing staff member said.
All four interviewees working at Sinopec contacted by the Global Times said that huge spending on alcohol is omnipresent.
"At every festival, giving gifts, especially costly ones, to your leaders who have been taking good care of you is a backdoor form of etiquette known to all, so a small part of the alcohol can be found in the drinks cabinets of Sinopec's top leaders," an accountant working at Sinopec Yangzi Petrochemical Company Ltd told the Global Times anonymously.
