As the words fly, Venezuela corruption keeps creeping along...
<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, June 19, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel
"From Paraguay, President Chavez claimed that the State should be strengthened in order to be able to fight corruption in the hemisphere. The judicial power, he said ... was infiltrated by corruption in Venezuela..." Union Radio, June 18, 2003.
VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: Visiting a country perceived as the most corrupt country in Latin America (Paraguay), the President of the country perceived as the second most corrupt in Latin America (Venezuela) ... according to Transparency International and to the work just published by University of Santiago de Chile's Raimundo Soto ... saw fitting to speak about how to fight CORRUPTION.
On this occasion the Venezuelan President offered his recipe: To strengthen the power of the State.
How is this accomplished? The State becomes strong when its institutions are strong and, in turn, they are strong, when they are staffed by the best candidates, according to the proper rules of selection and when they are truly autonomous and independent. Only efficient and independent institutions can be strong.
In the Venezuelan case this is not what has happened ... the Executive power has had excessive discretionary power and has "captured" all other institutions ... there are no independent government institutions: the members of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) were named at will by Chavez and Luis Miquilena.
Later on ... when Chavez and Miquilena split ... the Supreme Tribunal of Justice became a battleground between these two persons' followers. Today, the government is attempting to pass a new Law on the composition of the Tribunal, which would increase the number of its members to 30 ... so that these new members are Chavez followers and can guarantee that all decisions satisfy the desires of the President?
This is what the President seems to understand by "strenghtening" the judicial system ... but, of course, the results of this maneuver will not help the fight against corruption, but will, in fact, reinforce it.
Similarly, the National Assembly is still in the hands of the President, although his originally ample majority has dwindled to one or two votes. Since the government block does not practice votes of conscience and always votes according to the desires of the President, there is no democratic discussion on any topic.
Whatever is needed by the President is offered to him at the earliest possible moment by the Assembly.
This state of subservience can not but result in higher corruption levels, as there are no checks and balances on Executive power. We have recently seen how internal debt has been increased to $11 billion by the Minister of Finance, with the bulldozing approval of the Assembly ... a move which puts the country closer to financial bankruptcy.
The Ombudsman, the Comptroller General and the Attorney General are only sad figureheads doing the President's bidding. To me, this is the reason great amounts of national financial resources can be utilized by the Executive power in anti-constitutional and illegal ways without any objection from those officers. It's obvious that, under this state of affairs, corruption will flourish rather than decrease, since the Executive power has no restraint.
The Armed Force is currently under a military high command that is not loyal to the nation and to the Constitution but to one man, the President. An independent high command would not accept the use of military force to support vandalism, as recently took place in the Petare area of Caracas. Similarly, an institutionally-oriented high command would have to remind the President that he can not rule until 2021 ... as he keeps boasting he will do ... unless he violates the laws of the country. In order to keep the members of this high command loyal to him, the President could be forced to give the group privileges which are not permissible under the law. This abnormal bond promotes corruption since the armed forces should exclusively be loyal to the Constitution and the Law.
The President's words during his visit to Paraguay have been most unfortunate ... they describe a theoretical model to fight corruption which he is not in practice following. As his words fly all over the world from Paraguay, corruption inexorably creeps up and takes firm roots among members of his government. Scandals take place almost around the clock.
This was to be expected, as corruption flourishes in those governments in which words do no fit deeds ... when there is a gap between what its is said and done, the politician or the bureaucrat loses credibility. Today, very few still believe the words of the President because they have seen that what is taking place is very different.
Citizens' tolerance of the issue of corruption is very low because this has been a problem for many years now ... and they had hoped that this President would have had the will to eradicate it. But this will does not exist. If it did, Venezuela would not still possess one of the most corrupt states of the western hemisphere.
Two cases of high level ... presumably corrupt ... practices have been denounced in the last weeks. One is the situation in the State of Barinas, where the Governor, President Chavez' father, has been the object of a highly-incriminating report by the State Comptroller describing how more than 50% of the total State budget has been wasted or pilfered.
As a result the State Legislative Chamber has rejected the Governor's Annual Report and elevated their charges to the attention of the Comptroller General who, it is expected, will promptly ... do nothing.
- The document is so explicit in its allegations that members of the government party in the State Legislature did not vote in favor of Governor Chavez.
The other case involves the Minister of Finance, Tobias Nobrega, denounced by Francisco Rodriguez (the main financial advisor to the National Assembly) for managing the sale of millions of dollars of Venezuelan debt bonds without Assembly approval and in a manner described as "uncompetitive bidding" which totally lacks transparency. By means of this mechanism the debt paper is sold to private investors for a pre-established top price which is lower than face value, only to be re-bought later at face value by the government.
Rodriguez' accusations, seconded by economist Gustavo Garcia and politician Carmelo Lauria suggest that these operations are conducted to satisfy the personal interests of government officers, including the Minister.
I do not know, of course, if such charges are true, since no proper investigation has been made. But what is beyond doubt is that excessive discretionary power among government bureaucrats and their lack of accountability inevitably leads to high levels of corruption.
Corruption can not be fought with empty and hypocritical words but with decisive action, even if (or, specially if) relatives or close friends are involved.
Our national poet Andres Eloy Blanco wrote a poem about the chief of police of a small town being forced to put his lifelong friend in prison for breaking the law but, then, going everyday to cultivate his friend's patch of land while he was in jail.
If the President wanted to be true to his creed, he would take action against the questionable activities of his circle of friends and relatives even while he keeps loyal to them.
Because, Loyalty is one thing and Complicity is quite another...
Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983. You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email gustavo@vheadline.com