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*UPDATE at bottom. Lately, information coming out of Venezuela confirms that officials from the Hugo Chavez regime are totally unaccountable, above the law for all practical purposes. It sort of started when Congressman Carlos Ramos revealed there was a $29 billion fiscal hole in FONDEN, which is basically an out-of-budget fund that Hugo Chavez uses with absolute discretion to fund his pet projects and global revolution.
Daniel writes in to say that I should provide a bit of an explanation for why this should be a scandal. I guess that the reason would be that it is simply not normal for a Central Bank, to transfer free and clear, ownership of a sovereign bond, worth $2 billion, to a recently formed limited company with a share capital of £2,000, managed by an individual (Tony Caplin) who appears as inactive in the Financial Services Authority register.
Congressman Carlos Ramos is now turning his attention to Frank Williams' F1 team. PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil State conglomerate, is sponsoring the Williams F1 team. No one in Venezuela -apart from a handful of chavistas- knows how many millions have PDVSA promised and disbursed to Williams F1 team. In any case, according to Venezuelan legislation, no public monies can be committed to any such projects without the approval of the Venezuelan Congress.
The letter from Congressman Carlos Ramos to Isabelle Marand, VP Corporate Coomunications at Gemalto, was delivered to her office in 6 Rue de la Verreine, Meudon, in France, on 7 November 2011, according to La Poste:
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