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In Venezuela, Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami has resigned as Anti-Corruption Police investigate senior officials at state oil company PDVSA, among other entities. The authorities have already arrested several executives, judges and politicians. The opposition attacks the government of Nicolás Maduro and accuses it of the crisis that the South American oil giant is going through.
The powerful Venezuelan Oil Minister, Tareck El Aissami, announced on Monday, March 20, his resignation through the social network Twitter. An announcement that occurs in the midst of the investigation for alleged corruption that is being carried out in Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and other sectors of the Government.
El Aissami, who held said portfolio since 2020, stated that he is leaving the ministry “with the purpose of fully supporting, accompanying and backing” the process. Thus, he was willing to help in the anti-corruption campaign of President Nicolás Maduro.
By virtue of the investigations that have been initiated into serious acts of corruption in PDVSA; I have made the decision to present my resignation as Minister of Petroleum, with the purpose of fully supporting, accompanying and backing this process.
—Tareck El Aissami (@TareckPSUV) March 20, 2023
Last week, the National Anti-Corruption Police announced that it was conducting an investigation against unidentified public officials in the oil industry, the justice system and in some municipalities, without citing PDVSA.
Authorities arrested a mayor, two judges and three government officials, at least two of whom are linked to PDVSA, state television and sources familiar with the process reported.
The detained officials include Colonel Antonio Pérez, former vice president in charge of trade and supply for the state oil company, and Colonel Samuel Testamarck, general manager of PDVSA’s maritime arm, PDV Marina.
The investigation indicates that the detainees were linked to a series of oil shipments that left the country without due payment to the company. Other executives were suspended from their posts.
Last year, PDVSA suffered millions in losses after the abandonment of the country by oil tankers that did not make adequate payment for their cargoes. Several companies have decided to leave Venezuela after TotalEnergies and Equinor did so in 2021.
After taking office in January, the new head of PDVSA, Pedro Tellechea, ordered an audit and suspended oil supply contracts.
This Sunday the attorney general, Tarek William Saab, announced that they were investigating crimes in different branches of the State and connected to “strategic sectors.”
In the latest arrests are mayor Pedro Hernández of Las Tejerías, a flood-affected area where dozens of people died late last year, and Joselit Ramírez, the former head of Venezuela’s crypto asset watchdog.
Ramírez had been directing the body in charge of the petro, Venezuela’s digital currency, since 2018, and is being investigated for cases related to PDVSA, according to the official newspaper ‘Últimas Noticias’.
El Aissami and corruption in the oil giant
Arresting government officials for corruption is unusual in Venezuela, which is why human rights groups such as Transparency International have described it as “opaque.”
In 2017 several executives and two former PDVSA presidents were arrested, while in 2018 the authorities detained several executives for administrative irregularities.
Venezuela is one of the countries with the largest oil reserves in the world, but officials are rarely held accountable.
El Aissami, one of Maduro’s great allies, has been accused of being a drug kingpin by the United States since 2017, when he served as Interior Minister and Governor, in the government of then-President Hugo Chávez.
According to the US Treasury Department, El Aissami “supervised or was part owner of narcotics shipments of more than 1,000 kilograms from Venezuela on multiple occasions, including those with final destinations in Mexico and the United States.”
The opposition takes advantage of the investigation and attacks Maduro
The Primero Justicia (PJ) party of the presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles, “strongly” rejected the “new episode of corruption of the Nicolás Maduro regime.” He also stressed that for his bench this is the “true cause why Venezuela is in ruins.”
In a press release from PJ, he assured that this is “another proof that all the chaos suffered by Venezuela is not the fault of international pressure,” but of the “representatives of the regime, who have led the country to the worst crisis of the history”.
For them, “international pressure has been a great tool to protect Venezuelan assets and stop all corruption and theft of the money that belongs to the country.”
Former congressman Juan Guaidó affirmed that the “Maduro regime stars in and confirms what all Venezuelans already know, that they are responsible for the tragedy and the cause of a complex humanitarian emergency that the country is going through today.”
For his part, Diosdado Cabello, the ruling party and first vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), assured that those accused of corruption are “exceptions” who do not have the support of the party.
“In the revolution, the corrupt have no space. Being corrupt is not being a revolutionary, whoever wears a red shirt and is stealing is not a revolutionary (…) we are acting against those exceptions,” Cabello said from Caracas.
With Reuters, AP and EFE
