Staying relevant in politics is quite challenging even in the best of times. Imagine the difficulty faced by those with such aspirations when, amid the current pandemic, their area of expertise is a banana republic and a failed state steeped in corruption, such as crisis-stricken Venezuela. One example is Francisco Rodríguez, who transitioned from an advisory role in the Venezuelan Congress to the academic world, making a living by discussing – in stressed bond circles – the reliability and capacity of Chavismo to pay its accumulated debt.
Francisco Rodriguez calculated available assets of Venezuela
Rodríguez has been active lately. He proposed a negotiation roadmap in the context of political talks between Maduro and the Guaidó camps in Norway in 2019. When those negotiations failed, as has happened between Chavismo and the opposition for nearly two decades, Rodríguez left the two-person team that catered to the bolibourgeoisie. He then shifted to local politics, collaborating with former Henri Falcon Lara. His most recent defense includes the immediate lifting of Treasury sanctions, which would primarily benefit the criminal group ruling Venezuela, along with a food-for-oil program allegedly supporting Guaidó’s people. This would be financed by the sources outlined in Rodríguez’s own estimates (above).
Rodríguez claims that the joint ventures operating with PDVSA have approximately $6.989 billion in dividends that have not been returned to Venezuela due to Treasury sanctions. A more conservative estimate is around $3.2 billion. It is assumed that Guaidó has “unilateral” access to these funds.
Rodríguez then echoes Jorge Arreaza, mentioning $1.667 billion in PDVSA funds seized from Novobanco in Portugal, to which Guaidó also supposedly has unhindered access, as they are “in Novobanco bank accounts in the U.S.” There is no conservative estimate of how much of that Guaidó might actually access.
The gold held by the Bank of England and the profits from CITGO operations complete a pot of $11.559 billion that Guaidó could tap into at any moment.
For many years, joint ventures operating in Venezuela have faced tremendous complications regarding the repatriation of profits due to a perverse and completely corrupt currency control mechanism. Some of them have, in fact, established what could be described as a barter economy, in which PDVSA settles accounts receivable with oil. It is unclear how Rodríguez arrived at the exact figure of $6.989 billion, considering his own admission of the lack of proper figures published by Guaidó’s “administration.”
PDVSA has been struggling for control of the Novobanco funds in three separate cases in the Portuguese courts. It is false to claim that Guaidó has unilateral access to those funds, and it is pure speculation to say that they are deposited in the U.S.
Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Bank of England are in no rush to allow Guaidó to dispose of Venezuela’s gold, as officials from the UK involved have informed this site.
According to revenues from CITGO sales, there are so many creditors pursuing the assets that Venezuela has left abroad that arguing that Guaidó can get his hands on them is merely a delusion.
Rodríguez remains sought after by mainstream media to comment on various issues regarding Venezuela. In his polished propaganda backed by his Harvard doctorate, he always omits past associations with individuals like Víctor Sierra, and how he maintained for years that investing in Chavista bonds was a good deal. Given the prevailing ignorance in international circles regarding Venezuela’s position and financial problems, there is little chance that anyone will ask Rodríguez to clarify his utterly absurd calculations.
Let the above serve as an invitation for Rodríguez to explain the sources and methods used for such figures, so that all Venezuelans can learn the true financial position of the country.