{"id":666,"date":"2013-09-17T11:42:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T10:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colindgordon.net\/?p=666"},"modified":"2013-09-17T11:42:34","modified_gmt":"2013-09-17T10:42:34","slug":"the-oil-industry-corruption-in-venezuela-a-mutual-blame-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/2013\/09\/the-oil-industry-corruption-in-venezuela-a-mutual-blame-game\/","title":{"rendered":"The Oil Industry & Corruption In Venezuela: A Mutual Blame Game:"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>GUSTAVO CORONEL GIVES THE OPPOSITION POINT OF VIEW IN A TALK AT CANNING HOUSE:<\/p>\n

\u00a0In which Latin American country is business malpractice & fraud most prevalent? Haiti? Honduras. Nicaragua? No. According to the most recent \u201cCorruption Perceptions Index\u201d published by \u201cTransparency International\u201d\u00a0 (quoted during August in \u201cThe Economist Magazine\u201d and Spain\u2019s \u201cEl Pais\u201d) that status belongs to Venezuela, ranked at position 165 (out of 176 nations), just above Iraq, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. How did this happen and who is responsible? In his lecture to a large & attentive audience at the new Canning House address (14\/15 Belgrave Square SW1) on September 9th<\/sup>, Gustavo Coronel \u2013 a former director of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), founder of the anti-corruption organisation \u201cPro Calidad de Vida\u201d and Venezuela\u2019s representative to Transparency International (1996-2000) \u2013 firmly ascribed the blame to the Chavez \/ Maduro Governments.<\/p>\n

He did acknowledge, however, that Hugo Chavez had been elected President in 1998 mainly because he was perceived as a more honest alternative to his immediate predecessors \u2013 and thus that the problem of corruption \u201c is not exclusive to the revolution\u201d. On the contrary (declared Coronel), it is \u201c a blend of the newcomers and the old hands who have always been there\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, both the Venezuelan Government and the opposition have been levelling increasingly vehement accusations at each other. As \u201cVenezuela Analysis.com\u201d reported on 4th<\/sup> August, the previous day both sets of supporters had held rallies in separate areas of Caracas to demonstrate against the \u201cinefficiency & corruption of the politicians on the other side\u201d. At the Plaza Bolivar, President Maduro called on the people of Venezuela to \u201ccombat capitalist corruption, wherever it is, within the corrupt rightwing or in a Chavista traitor who falls victim to it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In a televised speech on 12th<\/sup> August (noted Venezuela Analysis), Maduro announced that he would \u201capply for special decree powers to begin the process of reform\u201d. Between 8th<\/sup> July \u2013 13th<\/sup> August \u201c103 arrests were made in the anti-corruption campaign, including officials from the consumer protection agency IDEPABIS, the state-owned iron company Ferrominera, a joint Sino-Venezuelan development fund and even six judicial personnel\u201d. Furthermore, the President has contended that the blackouts which affected 70% of the country on 4th<\/sup> September were due to sabotage and constituted a rehearsal for an \u201celectric coup\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Opposition leader and Miranda State Governor Henrique Capriles promptly rejected these allegations and argued instead that the blackouts showed \u201c once again the terrible failure of the Government\u201d. It was evident at Canning House that Gustavo Coronel agrees with this interpretation.The country, he insisted, \u201cis in economic & social ruin\u201d due to the \u201cfatal combination of being hooked on oil to the point that we are over-sensitive to the fluctuations in price and the \u2018hyper-corruption\u2019 of the company (PDVSA) that generates this mono-export\u201d. He asserted that the Government had \u201cransacked\u201d the country\u2019s oil fund and that the national debt had rocketed from $25 billion dollars in 1999 to around $170 billion now: \u201c96% of Venezuela\u2019s exports are oil: The price per barrel during the last ten years has been $85 – $105, so we should be awash with money \u2013 but are not\u201d.<\/p>\n

Coronel maintained this was due to the oil income\u00a0 being diverted from the Central Bank to \u201cunaccountable parallel funds\u201d managed by what he portrayed as \u201cThe Gang of Four\u201d (The President & the Ministers of Planning, Finance and Energy) whose main purpose was \u201c to consolidate their political power through a policy of handouts\u201d. Because these are \u201cnot as abundant as before\u201d, the poor (he believes) are \u201cbeginning to feel abandoned\u201d. The country (he proclaimed) \u201chas a lot of problems of its own\u201d, so shouldn\u2019t be giving oil money to \u201cideological friends\u201d such as Cristina Fernandez (Argentina), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Daniel Ortega (Nicaragua), Alexander Lukashenko (Belarus), Hezbollah & Hamas.<\/p>\n

Coronel was especially hostile to what he\u00a0regarded as the \u201cmain crime\u201d: Donating (by his estimation) $4 billion pa to Cuba, \u201cmore than they received from the USSR in the 1960\u2019s\u201d. He claimed that the \u201cwhole managerial structure\u201d of PDVSA is \u201con the take\u201d and that its debts are $85 billion \u2013 not the official figure of $45 billion. As the value of the company\u2019s assets \u201care closer to $75 billion, that means it is going bankrupt\u201d.<\/p>\n

Robert Capurro, the Canning House Chief Executive Officer\u00a0 \u2013 when introducing Coronel \u2013 requested that the questions afterwards should be \u201ccivil\u201d. He needn\u2019t have worried. There appeared to be scarcely\u00a0any supporters of the Bolivarian revolution in the auditorium.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On 9th<\/sup> September, the \u201cLive Science Centre\u201d released its list of the \u201cWorld\u2019s Happiest Countries\u201d. Venezuela was at No. 20 (out of 156) \u2013 despite the gloomy scenario depicted by Gustavo Coronel.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0GUSTAVO CORONEL GIVES THE OPPOSITION POINT OF VIEW IN A TALK AT CANNING HOUSE: \u00a0In which Latin American country is business malpractice & fraud most prevalent? Haiti? Honduras. Nicaragua? No. According to the most recent \u201cCorruption Perceptions Index\u201d published by \u201cTransparency International\u201d\u00a0 (quoted during August in \u201cThe Economist Magazine\u201d and Spain\u2019s \u201cEl Pais\u201d) that status […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":667,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666\/revisions\/667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colindgordon.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}