Bolivia to probe Brazilian infrastructure contracts

Brazil's Lava Jato corruption probe, which has swept up former presidents and billionaires alike across Latin America, looks set to add Bolivia to its long list of implicated governments.

President Evo Morales, who is in his 12th year in power, said he asked congress to form an investigative committee after Brazilian judicial documents allegedly mentioned payments made to Bolivian government officials in exchange for highway contracts.

"Bolivia is being mentioned of late. I have the greatest interest in having these acts of corruption investigated," Morales said in broadcast comments. "Neither this government nor the president is implicated in any act of corruption with companies, and certainly not Odebrecht," the Brazilian conglomerate at the epicenter of the scandal.

According to Brazilian prosecutors, construction companies Camargo Correa and Andrade Gutierrez made payments to Bolivian officials to secure the Roboré-El Carmen highway contract, Santa Cruz newspaper El Deber reported.

Camargo Correa, Andrade Gutierrez and fellow Brazilian firms OAS, Queiroz Galvão and Odebrecht were all awarded infrastructure contracts in Bolivia during the governments of Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada (1993-97, 2002-03), Carlos Mesa (2003-05) and Eduardo Rodríguez (2005-06).

Congress, which is dominated by Morales' MAS party, was scheduled on Tuesday to create a special bipartisan panel on the corruption case, newspaper La Razón reported. Opposition politicians such as former president Jorge Quiroga (2001-02) claim Morales' government is also involved in the Lava Jato case.

Morales, already Latin America's longest-serving leader after first taking office in 2005, plans to run for a fourth straight mandate next year.

Odebrecht in December 2016 admitted to paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to secure contracts across Latin America. The corruption case has already led to the ousting of presidents in Brazil and Peru and the imprisonment of high-ranking government officials in Peru, Ecuador and Panama. Leaders from Venezuela, Colombia and the Dominican Republic have also been accused of receiving illegal payments.