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The ten songs of the year, the ten books of the year, the ten sexiest models of the month. Why not the Hit Parade of Corruption? Applied to Hugo Chavez’s revolution such an exercise provides many candidates for the top ten slots. Our own surveys, based on the magnitude of the inmorality, indicate that the top ten in the Hit Parade of corruption under the Hugo Chavez “revolution” are the following:

1. THE CHAVEZ-CASTRO PETROLEUM SUPPLY AGREEMENT.

The top spot goes to the agreement between Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to supply subsidized Venezuelan hydrocarbons to Cuba. The volume being supplied is close to 100,000 barrels per day. The agreement has been in effect since 2000 and would last 15 years. 25 percent of the volume is sold at credit and with an interest of 2 percent. Payment of another percentage of the volumes is in the form of services impossible to quantify. The percentage to be paid in cash is not being paid timely, if at all. A portion of the volumes is possibly being re-exported by Castro at an obscene profit. The cost of this agreement to Venezuela, made without proper consultation with the Venezuelan people and in violation of the commercial norms of PDVSA, is estimated at some $2.2 billion per year. The 15-year agreement, if not stopped, will cost Venezuela close to $30 billion.

2. THE GROTESQUE NATIONAL ELECTORAL COUNCIL.

The National Electoral Council under Chavez has been rotten from the start. Its Board was named in violation of the Constitution. Carrasquero and Rodriguez were stooges of Chavez. Psychiatrist Rodriguez ended up his assignment by being a bodyguard of Ollanta Humala while still being president of the council. Today, all members of the Board, except one, are followers of Hugo Chavez and decisions cannot be expected to be impartial. Smartmatic, the murky company that has the contract for the automated equipment, was created in 2000, never had any previous experience in electoral events, did not have any capital, but received a no- bid contract of $100 million from Chavez. The favorite polling company of Chavez, North American Opinion Research, is a ghost outfit that had the audacity to predict Humala’s victory in Peru by 6 or 7 points. The Electoral Registry is full of statistical impossibilities, including 39,000 voters 100 years old or older, one still working at 165 years of age and over 2,000 sharing the same address (not the poliedro). This immense fraud has become one of the greatest enemies of Venezuelan democracy.

3. THE PROSTITUTION OF PETROLEOS DE VENEZUELA.

In the eight years of Chavez’s rule Petroleos de Venezuela has seen its production fall in about half a million barrels per day. Management is in the hands of a very mediocre bunch that allows the money and assets of the company to be used as political tools. The money that should have been dedicated to investment and maintenance is being used for social programs that have no planning or accountability. The Chavez regime has brought the anti-Midas touch to PDVSA, pilfering and using our oil wealth for their own purposes of political power. At least $7 billion have been siphoned out of PDVSA to feed Chavez’s propaganda and populist policy of handouts.

4. THE CORRUPT SUPREME TRIBUNAL OF JUSTICE.

For those who do not have a good memory the Supreme Tribunal of Justice was the result of an illegal political process, through which the “originary” Constituent Assembly eliminated all democratic institutions in 1999, so they could be replaced by Chavez’s followers. This new tribunal was expanded in size, from 20 to 32 members, to convert it into a political appendix of Chavez. During the 2006 inaugural session the “magistrates” in full regalia stood up and shamed themselves by chanting “Uh, Ah, Chavez no se va”, in the most disgusting demonstration of servility since Juan Vicente Gomez said to his 1922 Congress that “he wanted to retire” and the members of Congress started shouting: “Please don’t go, please don’t go”. One of the most ardent followers of Chavez, Luis Velazquez Alvaray, is a grand thief, according to his rival Minister Jesse Chacon. Velazquez, says Chacon, obtained millions through commissions and over-billing in real state being acquired by the tribunal. In turn Velazquez said that Chacon and Rangel control a mafia of judges called the “Band of the Dwarves”, that the whole “supreme” tribunal is corrupt and indulge in drug trafficking and that Mr. Chacon’s brother, who bought a bank without having any money, tried to pressure him into depositing all the money of the tribunal in that bank. Is Mr. Velazquez in prison? No. He seems to be in Spain. He went crying all the way to the bank.

5. THE BOLIVAR 2000 PROGRAM AND THE FONDO UNICO SOCIAL; TWO NESTS OF VIPERS.

Chavez wanted to eliminate poverty with the help of the military. He created two programs: Bolivar 2000 and Fondo Unico Social and put two of his buddies, Victor Cruz Weffer and William Fariñas in charge of them. The funds assigned to the two (dis) organizations came up to some $ 700 million and much of this money remains unaccounted for. A grant, according to research done by Agustin Beroes, was given to a foundation managed by the wife of the driver of Fariñas. How is this for transparency? The two programs disappeared after pulling thousands of teeth and cutting a lot of hair but doing nothing to eliminate poverty in our country.

6. Foreign contributions made to Hugo Chavez’s campaign and presidency.

In 1998 and 1999 a foreign bank, BBVA, contributed to Chavez presidential campaign with $525,000 and, later, with $1000,000 for the campaign of the National Assembly. The officer authorizing these payments, former president of the bank Emilio Ibarra, was indicted in Spain for these illegal contributions and a two-year prison term requested by the prosecution. In Venezuela the beneficiary of this act of electoral corruption remains unmolested. The Venezuelan Moral Power, Mundarain-Russian-Rodriguez, has remained loudly silent.

7. The case of the Airbus bought without budgetary authorization.

When Chavez was given a “colita” in an airbus owned by a Middle East sheik he fell in love with the plane and, on his return to Venezuela, said he wanted one just like it. When he was told there was no budget for a $65 million plane he said he was sure they would find a way. They did. The plane was bought in open violation of the constitution and of the laws that regulate government expenditures. This is a crime punishable by law with prison and Chavez is the person who should go to prison.

8. Corruption at the Sugar Mill Complex Ezequiel Zamora.

Army general Delfin Gomez, former Minister Antonio Albarrán, more than 15 army officers and Cuban advisers helped to pilfer over $1 billion in funds destined to the agricultural complex that bears the name of Chavez’s idol, Ezequiel Zamora. Here, not only money was wasted and stolen but the minister concealed his knowledge of the crime because “we were in an electoral campaign”. This, of course, was highly inconvenient.

9. Governor Acosta Carlez authorized 800 contracts without bids.

Carabobo Governor, better known by his burping on TV and his abuse of women, recently went on public record to say that he had given 800 contracts without bids “because they answered situations of emergency”. He does not know that the only government agency with authority to define what emergency is, in order to justify a no-bid contract, is the Cabinet and this was never done. According to a survey of Transparency International, Venezuelan chapter, 95 percent of all known public contracting is done without bids under the Chavez regime.

10. The abuse and misuse of the name of Simon Bolivar by the corrupt Chavez’s revolution.

Although this act of corruption does not involve great amounts of money (although the cost of changing Venezuela’s name to Bolivarian Republic of… must have been significant), the cost of this perversion is spiritual. Venezuelans have seen how Hugo Chavez has prostituted the name of the main national hero, by calling his undemocratic and corrupt revolution “bolivarian”. This will damage the Venezuelan spirit for many years and it will not be corrected until Chavez is gone and Venezuela is again a republic where democracy, freedom and dignity prevails.

Of course, this top list for our hit parade can change, as new acts of corruption come to light. Also receiving votes: the Lamborghini of Mr. Carruyo, the $30 million donation to Evo Morales, the “killing” made by chavista banks in the case of the Argentinean bonds, the sacking of the international reserves of the Central Bank, the expenditure of $15 billion in donations, grants and promises to foreign governments in order to buy loyalties, the acquisition of almost $5 billion in weapons and the arming of the Venezuelan youth, the donations of oil to the “poor” of the U.S. and London, the marketing of PDVSA’s oil through brokers, the houses bought by the “austere “leaders of the revolution, and on and on.

Never has been Venezuela under the claws of such a greedy and immoral group. Not when Guzman, the Monagas brothers, Cipriano Castro, Gomez, Perez Jimenez, CAP, not even when Lusinchi. The Chavez’s regime is, so far, the worst and the most mediocre.

Gustavo Coronel is a 28 years oil industry veteran, a member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), author of several books. At the present Coronel is Petroleumworld associate editor and advisor on the opinion and editorial content of Petroleumworld. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

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