Word: pemex
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...Madrid has had some success in dealing with Mexico's endemic corruption. He has created watchdog offices for public spending and jailed Jorge Diaz Serrano, former president of the state-owned PEMEX oil giant, on charges of defrauding the company of $34 million. He has also allowed the government to investigate the suspicious wealth of former Mexico City Police Chief Arturo Durazo Moreno, and confiscated some of his ostentatious properties...
Mexico's giant national oil company, Pemex, appears to have been a particularly fertile breeding ground for vice. Since coming to office last year, De la Madrid has pursued a vigorous "moral renovation" campaign aimed at stemming the high-level graft that was rampant in Mexico. Last July a judge had former Pemex Director Jorge Díaz Serrano arrested on a $34 million fraud charge. Contrary to custom, Díaz Serrano was not bailed out by political friends, but still sits in Mexico City's Southern Penitentiary, awaiting trial...
...both Barragán and La Quina will be questioned about García's accusations. But despite public disapproval, genuine reform is unlikely. The 133,000-member oilworkers' union is reputed to be as powerful as it is corrupt. The union is guaranteed 100% of all Pemex construction contracts, plus 40% of all drilling contracts, and even takes a cut on projects completed by other workers. Although some of the union's profits are channeled into workers' programs such as farming cooperatives, union leaders apparently are taking far more than their fair share...
...considered a possible successor to Lopez Portillo. As a wealthy oil contractor in the 1960s and '70s, he had at one time been in partnership with Vice President George Bush in the Houston-based Zapata Oil Co. Later, after Lopez Portillo appointed him to be director-general of Pemex, Díaz Serrano guided the huge oil exploration program that, in just five years, made Mexico the world's fourth largest oil producer...
...Pemex chief, the flamboyant Díaz Serrano often dealt bluntly with the U.S. As he once put it, "We aim to deal with the U.S. according to our program of energy." In 1978, while he was running Pemex, Mexico abruptly canceled a natural gas sale after the U.S. refused to meet the Pemex price. In June 1981, after the worldwide oil glut had forced Mexico to lower its export price, Díaz Serrano suddenly resigned from his Pemex post after his enemies charged that he had not cleared the price cut with Lopez Portillo...