Venezuela’s oil czar announced his resignation on Monday as officials investigate allegations of corruption among officials in the state oil industry and other parts of the government.
Tareck El Aissami announced his resignation on Twitter and pledged to help investigate any allegations involving Petroleos de Venezuela SA, commonly known as PDVSA, while also offering his support for President Nicolás Maduro’s anti-corruption campaign.
“…I put myself at the disposal of the leadership of the (ruling party) to support this crusade that President @NicolasMaduro has undertaken against the anti-values that we are obliged to fight, even with our lives”, El Aissami writes.
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Maduro did not immediately address El Aissami’s resignation. Attorney General Tarek William Saab said in a radio interview that El Aissami’s resignation “is what needs to happen in situations like this.”
Venezuela’s national anti-corruption police last week announced an investigation into unidentified public officials in the oil industry, the judiciary and some municipalities, although they did not name PDVSA. Saab said at least half a dozen officials, including people affiliated with PDVSA, had been arrested and he expected more to be detained.
“We are facing extremely delicate events that compromise the participation of Venezuelan state officials,” Saab said. “I assure you, even more at this time when the country calls not only for justice but also for the strengthening of institutions, that we will apply the full weight of the law against these individuals. »
Corruption has long plagued Venezuela, which sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves. But those responsible are rarely held accountable – a major irritant for citizens, the majority of whom live on $1.90 a day, the international benchmark for extreme poverty.
The US government named El Aissami, a powerful ally of Maduro, a narcotics kingpin in 2017 in connection with the activities of his previous posts as interior minister and governor. The Treasury Department alleged “that it oversaw or partially detained narcotics shipments over 1,000 kilograms from Venezuela on multiple occasions, including those with final destinations in Mexico and the United States.”
Venezuelan oil czar Tareck El Aissami announced on Monday that he would step down from his post. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, Dossier)
Under the government of the late President Hugo Chávez, El Aissami headed the Interior Ministry. He was appointed oil minister in April 2020.
Oil is Venezuela’s most important industry. A windfall of hundreds of billions of dollars of oil thanks to record world prices has allowed Chávez to launch many initiatives, including state-run food markets, new public housing, free health clinics and health programs. ‘education.
But a subsequent drop in prices and government mismanagement, first under Chávez’s government and then under Maduro’s, put an end to this lavish spending. Thus began a complex crisis that plunged millions of people into poverty and pushed more than 7 million Venezuelans to migrate.
Poor management of PDVSA, and more recently economic sanctions imposed by the United States, have led to a steady decline in production, from 3.5 million barrels per day when Chávez took power in 1999 to around 700,000. barrels per day last year.
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The US government recently eased some sanctions, even allowing oil giant Chevron, for the first time in more than three years, to resume production. Maduro’s government negotiated with its US-backed political opponents primarily to get sanctions lifted.
US Congress researchers saw El Aissami as an obstacle to Maduro’s goals.
“If Al Aissami remains in this position, it could complicate efforts to lift oil sanctions,” said a November report from the Congressional Research Center.
In September, Maduro’s government renewed accusations of wrongdoing against former oil minister Rafael Ramírez, alleging he was involved in a multi-billion dollar embezzlement operation in the early 2010s that took advantage of a dual currency exchange system. Ramírez, who oversaw the OPEC country’s oil industry for a decade, denied the charges.
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In 2016, Venezuela’s then opposition-run National Assembly said $11 billion had gone missing at PDVSA during the 2004-2014 period when Ramirez was the company’s helm. In 2015, the US Treasury Department accused a bank in Andorra of laundering some $2 billion stolen from PDVSA.
