The president of Venezuela recently delivered a speech in the National Assembly, where he requested special powers to supposedly “fight against corruption.” Allow me to state, without reservation, that Nicolás Maduro will irremediably fail in this endeavor, and I will explain why. Let’s start from the beginning: Maduro lacks the historiographical knowledge to write such a speech and the intellect to realize the contradictions between its content and his own life and performance in power. Therefore, from the outset, the “fight against corruption” comes off as little more than a joke.
Shortly into the speech, the writer brings up Che Guevara and his alleged revolutionary “austerity” and the desire that the “Cuban state did not grant any privileges to his wife and children.” Such claims coming from Nicolás Maduro, who is anything but austere and whose wife, children, and close associates have taken up public roles in Venezuela simply due to their connection with him, clearly demonstrate, from the very first minutes of this show, the total lack of credibility of his position. Maduro, whose wife Cilia has held various roles within the revolutionary apparatus and has reportedly placed around 40 relatives in government positions; Maduro, who just appointed a 23-year-old (whose only merit is being his son) as head of the Special Inspection Corps of the Presidency; Maduro, who puts Venezuela’s diplomacy in the hands of foreigners; Maduro, whose designation as Hugo Chavez’s heir was not due to a democratic process but to the corrupt finger of the caudillo; Maduro, whose presidency can be considered illegitimate for usurping positions and whose election—if Venezuela had independent justice and electoral systems—would never have occurred, is the one going to put an end to corruption? [insert hearty laugh here]
Allow me my skepticism. Venezuela, it must be said, has never had administrations that could be considered paragons of integrity. Nevertheless, the old bipartisan system was robust enough to have removed—due to corruption—a sitting president (Carlos Andrés Pérez). Similarly, the joke before Chavez came to power was that the only person imprisoned for corruption in Venezuela was the poor doorman of RECADI, the old agency that regulated currency control.
However, when Hugo Chavez arrived in 1998, the first thing he did was dismantle the state as it was and, through a constituent assembly, founded a new one where all institutions were—and continue to be—under chavista control.
Examples must be given to illustrate the case. The Ministry of Energy and Petroleum was the entity responsible for overseeing Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). What did Chavez do? He placed both the ministry and the presidency of PDVSA in the hands of the same person (Rafael Ramirez). In other words, Ramirez has to oversee himself (since the National Assembly controlled by chavismo has abdicated such responsibility). What has Maduro done to remedy this situation? He has appointed Ramirez—who retains his roles as both minister and president of PDVSA—as the new Vice President of the Economic Area. Thus, Ramirez will have to supervise—as Minister of Energy—the operations of the company he presides over—PDVSA—and how its funds are spent in the Venezuelan economy. There is a very apt saying for examples like Ramirez: “you pay and give change.”
Ramirez, quite the overseer, has under his considerable control the funds of PDVSA (gross income of $124,000,000,000 in 2012). As he only answers to himself, he manages these resources with singular irresponsibility. Let’s consider more recent examples regarding the blackout that recently left Venezuela in darkness: the electricity crisis. Experts estimate that the overpricing in purchases related to the electricity sector exceeded 20 billion dollars ($20,000,000,000). PDVSA has participated in many of these processes where corrupt businessmen would have pocketed multimillion-dollar sums.
What does the great overseer say about all this? In a recent meeting with sector businessmen, Minister-of-Energy-President-of-PDVSA-Vicepresident-of-the-Economic-Area Rafael Ramirez highlighted the work of a couple of Venezuelan companies: Vhicoa and Derwick Associates. The latter deserves special mention as it symbolizes the rampant corruption that characterizes the chavista regime.
Without any experience, without a track record or works in the sector, without public tenders, and not even being properly registered at the time of obtaining the first contract, Derwick Associates received 12 contracts from various Venezuelan state entities, including PDVSA. Twelve contracts—in the span of 14 months—whose total amount is unknown, as formal complaints made to contracting entities and the chavista prosecutor’s office have not prospered. The overpricing in just this company’s case is estimated at nearly 3,000 million dollars. Has Maduro urged the overseer Ramirez to explain such corruption? Has the chavista prosecutor’s office processed legitimate complaints in this regard? Has the chavista bench in the Assembly taken any action in this sense? None of this.
And this is the administration that now demands special powers to “fight corruption”? [insert another laugh here]
Venezuelans can be forgiven for their skepticism when we hear such nonsense from President Maduro. Chavismo, with its rigged elections, its “eternal” leader emerging from a coup d’état, its abject abdication of sovereignty, its outdated ideologies, its dependence on corrupt financial operators, its characterizing nepotism, its corrupt militarism, and the squandering of a fortune 15 to 20 times greater than what was needed to rebuild Europe after World War II, is the epitome of corruption.
Ramirez has utterly failed in his oversight functions. The same will happen to Maduro and anyone from his family or political circle he decides to assign. Entrusting the fight against corruption to Maduro is like appointing the wolf as the chief caregiver of the sheep and then believing he will protect them. The “parasitic bourgeoisie”—taking Derwick Associates as an example—that Maduro spoke of during the speech would not have been able to steal a single dollar without Hugo Chavez, without Rafael Ramirez, without Rodolfo Sanz, without Javier Alvarado, without Alí Rodriguez, without Diosdado Cabello; in short, without Maduro, without the omnipotent control of the chavista state, there is no “parasitic bourgeoisie” that can engage in acts of corruption, as the contracting of large infrastructure projects depends exclusively on the state. The placement of bonds and the exchange system, other sources of great corruption that have generated so much money for a few chavista bankers and financial operators, could not have occurred without the approval of different economic ministers in Venezuela. Food imports, another source that has generated millions for a few, could not have been carried out without Hugo Chavez’s desire to break the back of established national entrepreneurship. In other words, without the mercantilist state, and the subsequent chavista monopoly on administering the immense resources generated by oil, there is no “parasitic bourgeoisie” or corruption that can thrive.
Edmeé Betancourt, who just spent three months at the helm of the Central Bank of Venezuela, recently slipped by declaring that only last year “front companies”—like Derwick Associates—took between 15,000 and 20,000 million dollars from the Currency Administration Commission (CADIVI). And isn’t it true that chavismo controlled CADIVI in 2012? How could front companies steal that amount without chavista collaboration? Maduro’s stance against corruption is a good joke, nothing more.