petroleumworld

VenEconomy :Wielding the truncheon
and up to its neck in mire

Last week closed last with incidents that have further anaesthetized the rule of law and the system of justice in Venezuela.

First came the unprecedented warrant for the arrest of Globovisión's president, Guillermo Zuloaga, and his son issued by Control Court 13 in another attack on the freedom of speech and an attempt to silence the voices of dissidence. This warrant for the arrest of the Zuluoagas marks another precedent in Venezuela and reveals even more clearly how the Executive interferes with the Judiciary and the administration of justice. It just so happens that, only a few days earlier, the President of the Republic had said that he was “alarmed” that Zuloaga was still free.

Then there was the case of the Carabobo journalist, Francisco “Pancho” Pérez, who was given a prison sentence of three years six months, fined, and barred from holding political office and from exercising his profession for an “offense against a government official and slandering a person holding public office.” Pérez, who accused Valencia's Chavista mayor of alleged nepotism and corruption, is today a prisoner for having exercised his right to express his opinion.

The government continues to strike blows with its dictatorial truncheon in an attempt to sow fear and silence so that it can consolidate its dictatorship. But, no matter how much it tries to silence the barbarism of this revolution, it can no longer hide the fact that the regime is up to its neck in the mire of widespread corruption.

A quick look at the press gives an idea of the putrefaction that is eating away at the “revolution.”

For example, while the President tries to do a paint job on the collapsed PDVSA with his proposal of including the word “socialist” in its name, details of the murky dealings that led to the sinking of the Aban Peral platform on May 13 are still coming to light. According to an accusation filed before the Public Prosecutor's Office by Gustavo Coronel García, PDVSA allegedly incurred in excessive and unjustifiable overcharging in the hiring of the platform to the tune of some $500 million for the five years of the contract.

This Monday, El Nacional reported that Bariven, the PDVSA affiliate in charge of purchasing food abroad for PDVAL, is facing a lawsuit in Florida, USA, on charges of bribery involving $2 million, at a time when the authorities have still not clarified why PDVAL allowed more than 70,000 tons of basic food products to rot when these same products are conspicuous by their absence from the tables of the Venezuelan population.

Also this Monday, there are reports in the press of Chavismo 's corrupt management at CVG, with their accounts in Gazprombank, and at the Ministry of Education, with the case of the Sucre Mission's university centers that have still not been built even though the funds were allocated more than five years ago.

Corruption happens as a result of action, inaction, and omission.

VenEconomy has been a Venezuela's leading specialized publisher on financial, political and economic data since 1982. VenEconomy's Points of View on the issues of the day, as seen by VenEconomy during the last week. Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views.

Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by Veneconomy , June 14, 2010. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers

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Petroleumworld News 06/16/2010

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VenEconomy :Wielding the truncheon and up to its neck in mire

VenEconomy :Wielding the truncheon
and up to its neck in mire