Government of Venezuela calls to defend the oil industry from “sabotage”

( Spanish) –– The vice president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, urged workers in the state oil industry this Monday to form a “corps of combatants” to avoid possible “sabotage.”

“I know that there are 420 productive councils of workers in PDVSA, 96 in Pequiven, I call those councils and I call in general all the workers, all the workers, in the name of President Nicolás Maduro (…) I call them to form the body of combatants (sic), to defend the oil industry from extremists so that they do not dare to sabotage,” Rodríguez said in an event that she led accompanied by union representatives of the oil sector.

The vice president, who is also Minister of Petroleum, accused without evidence the opposition leader María Corina Machado of the fire on November 11 in the Muscar gas complex that affected gas distribution in the northeastern region of the country.

“They carried out the attack and then they gloated, for them it is happiness, and who asks for that? who plans that? The narcoparaca Machado who seems very emboldened”

The call to defend the oil industry was made after residents of the island of Margarita complained after almost two weeks due to a lack of electricity, according to reports on social networks and local media.

Rodríguez added that incidents like the one that occurred in Muscar are “sabotage attempts” that seek to destabilize and affect the Venezuelan economy.

Experts on energy issues and opposition leaders have stated in recent years that the problems of refineries and other facilities are due to the lack of maintenance and the possible incompetence of those who manage them.