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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Chavez Learned from Oil-for-Food |
| 2004-06-09 |
| EFL from V-Crisis ...reported by El Nacional on Saturday June 5th, to suspend the legal and mandatory deliveries of dollars obtained from the sale of petroleum, from Petroleos de Venezuela to the Venezuelan Central Bank, in favor to hand over this money directly to the government of Hugo Chavez for âsocial usesâ, or, in simpler words, for the political and personal use of this money by Chavez and his accomplices. This intolerable abuse of power is reported, as a matter of fact, by Rodrigo Cabezas, the President of the Finance Commission of the National Assembly and member of the government political party. Says Cabezas that the decision of PDVSA was taken in order to establish âa shorter route for the financing of public investment projectsâ. This measure, probably taken over a few drinks on a Saturday afternoon by a small group of ignorant people close to Chavez, is the equivalent to the elimination of the role played by the Federal Reserve and the Congress of the United States in the handling of public financial resources. Cabezas reported, like if he was talking about peanuts, that some $2 billion would be handed over to the government by PDVSA, short circuiting the Venezuelan Central Bank which was supposed, according to the Law, to receive that money. Already $ 750 million have been diverted, in this fashion, away from the Venezuelan Central Bank to the Chavez government during the month of May, as reported by Central Bank Director Armando Leon. The report by El Nacional adds that these illegal transfers explain why the international financial reserves of the Venezuelan Central Bank have been diminishing, in spite of increasing petroleum income. snip- |
| Posted by:Super Hose |