The Devil's Excrement

During the Rafael caldera Government in 1997 Congress created the Economic Advisory Office of Congress, later converted into the Economic Advisory Office of the National Assembly. The Office was created as part of a Cooperation program with the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB). The idea was to create an autonomous office that would evaluate the impact of new legislation from an economic point of view to help out decision making by the Legislature. Given that IDB would be providing the funding, the Office would be able to pay international salaries to attract Economists with Ph.D.’s and Masters Degrees and would function independently of the Assembly.

The office began functioning under the direction of Economist Gustavo Garcia, a Professor from IESA, the most prestigious business and management school in Venezuela. When Hugo Chavez was elected Garcia began issuing reports that were too critical of the Government, thus, taking advantage of the new constitution and the change from a bicameral Congress to National assembly, the office was declared under reorganization, shutdown  and then reopened with Economist Tobias Nobrega, currently the Minister of Finance, designated as the temporary Head of the Office in charge of reactivating the office as well as opening the process to hire the most qualified Economists for this “new” stage in the life of the office.

In September 2000, self-described “left-wing” economist and then Chavez defender Francisco Rodriguez was named to Head the office in this new stage. Rodriguez had obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1998 where he had specialized in studying economic policies for the redistribution of wealth. At that time, Rodriguez was Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland.

In time, Rodriguez became an uncomfortable source of strong opinions for the leadership of the national Assembly and the Government. During the scandal of the FIEM, where US$ 1.9 billion went “missing” , former Minister of Finance Merentes “explained” in Congressional testimony how these funds were spent to pay for Christmas bonuses and salaries, “accepting” his responsibility for spending these funds without authorization. Except that Rodriguez came out the next day and showed how all of the funds to pay for these expenditures had been approved from other sources. The mystery of the missing funds was never resolved.

Since that scandal Rodriguez became a harsh critic of the way public funding was being mismanaged, issuing very critical reports about the violations of the rules of the FIEM (Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund), suggesting there was corruption in the direct sale of Government bonds to local broker CEDEL by the ministry of Finance, writing a report which said the general strike in December 2002 was much smaller than the Government was saying and finally writing a number of reports very critical of Chavez’ request for the Venezuelan Central bank to give the Government US$ 1 billion.

But what really incensed the current leadership of the National assembly were two recent reports by Rodriguez’ office accusing the leadership itself of irregularities. In one, Rodriguez accuses that the Government is ready to pay US$ 300 million of fraudulent Bandagro bonds. Rodriquez says that the person who supposedly had signed these bonds has sworn that the signature is not his and it was fraudulently forged. A foreign group has been asking the Government t pay it US$ 600 million in capital and interest from these bonds.

This week the President of the National Assembly suspended Rodriguez and the second Economist of the Office, informing all of the other economists that from now on they would be working for the National Assembly and that they no longer had stability as their position were now positions of “trust” and thus subject to removal by the leadership of the Assembly. When Rodriguez complained that these decisions were invalid, the issue was brought to the Assembly itself that today ratified the disappearance of the Office as it was functioning. The decision was made only with the votes of the pro-Chávez Deputies

Rodriguez says that this violates the agreement with the IDB and he will go to the Supreme Court to ask that the Office be reestablished as an independent entity.

In contrast, the proposal to censor Minister of Health Roger Capella for saying that anyone that signed the petition against Chávez was a terrorist, did not receive sufficient votes for approval. Such is justice and morality in the Vth. Republic.

During the Rafael caldera Government in 1997 Congress created the Economic Advisory Office of Congress, later converted into the Economic Advisory Office of the National Assembly. The Office was created as part of a Cooperation program with the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB). The idea was to create an autonomous office that would evaluate the impact of new legislation from an economic point of view to help out decision making by the Legislature. Given that IDB would be providing the funding, the Office would be able to pay international salaries to attract Economists with Ph.D.’s and Masters Degrees and would function independently of the Assembly.

The office began functioning under the direction of Economist Gustavo Garcia, a Professor from IESA, the most prestigious business and management school in Venezuela. When Hugo Chavez was elected Garcia began issuing reports that were too critical of the Government, thus, taking advantage of the new constitution and the change from a bicameral Congress to National assembly, the office was declared under reorganization, shutdown  and then reopened with Economist Tobias Nobrega, currently the Minister of Finance, designated as the temporary Head of the Office in charge of reactivating the office as well as opening the process to hire the most qualified Economists for this “new” stage in the life of the office.

In September 2000, self-described “left-wing” economist and then Chavez defender Francisco Rodriguez was named to Head the office in this new stage. Rodriguez had obtained a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1998 where he had specialized in studying economic policies for the redistribution of wealth. At that time, Rodriguez was Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland.

In time, Rodriguez became an uncomfortable source of strong opinions for the leadership of the national Assembly and the Government. During the scandal of the FIEM, where US$ 1.9 billion went “missing” , former Minister of Finance Merentes “explained” in Congressional testimony how these funds were spent to pay for Christmas bonuses and salaries, “accepting” his responsibility for spending these funds without authorization. Except that Rodriguez came out the next day and showed how all of the funds to pay for these expenditures had been approved from other sources. The mystery of the missing funds was never resolved.

Since that scandal Rodriguez became a harsh critic of the way public funding was being mismanaged, issuing very critical reports about the violations of the rules of the FIEM (Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund), suggesting there was corruption in the direct sale of Government bonds to local broker CEDEL by the ministry of Finance, writing a report which said the general strike in December 2002 was much smaller than the Government was saying and finally writing a number of reports very critical of Chavez’ request for the Venezuelan Central bank to give the Government US$ 1 billion.

But what really incensed the current leadership of the National assembly were two recent reports by Rodriguez’ office accusing the leadership itself of irregularities. In one, Rodriguez accuses that the Government is ready to pay US$ 300 million of fraudulent Bandagro bonds. Rodriquez says that the person who supposedly had signed these bonds has sworn that the signature is not his and it was fraudulently forged. A foreign group has been asking the Government t pay it US$ 600 million in capital and interest from these bonds.

This week the President of the National Assembly suspended Rodriguez and the second Economist of the Office, informing all of the other economists that from now on they would be working for the National Assembly and that they no longer had stability as their position were now positions of “trust” and thus subject to removal by the leadership of the Assembly. When Rodriguez complained that these decisions were invalid, the issue was brought to the Assembly itself that today ratified the disappearance of the Office as it was functioning. The decision was made only with the votes of the pro-Chávez Deputies

Rodriguez says that this violates the agreement with the IDB and he will go to the Supreme Court to ask that the Office be reestablished as an independent entity.

In contrast, the proposal to censor Minister of Health Roger Capella for saying that anyone that signed the petition against Chávez was a terrorist, did not receive sufficient votes for approval. Such is justice and morality in the Vth. Republic.

Yesterday I received an e-mail where someone was coming to Venezuela to defend Hugo Chavez who has been defending the rights of people to housing, among many wonderful things it said about our President. I found the sentence amazingly ignorant, but today local newspaper El Universal carried this graph, based on official statistics that almost made me want to cry:

This is the total number of residential units built in Venezuela by both the public and the private sector. Last year, the number was less than nine thousand. I remember than in 1968 Rafael Caldera ran for President and one of his main campaign promises was that he would build 100,000 housing units per year. He never did, but the barrel of oil was less than $2 at the time and he actually came close. Construction has not only traditionally been one of the main drivers of the Venezuelan economy, but it also employs lots of people.

I find the People’s Ombudsman to be incredibly cynical. Today, in an interview on the radio he says:

“This is an institution that is being born and is at the service of the citizens, it can not be involved in the confrontation that people may have against Chávez or against me”

Well, I recall that as the military and the National Guard were repressing hundreds of “citizens” on February 27^th. , some of which were shot dead, others tortures and many repressed without mercy, the same People’s Ombudsman was standing in front of the theater where the G-15 meeting was taking place and defended the pro-Chavez activists who were there protected by the national guard and he argued: “The pro-Chavez supporters (who had no permit) can be here because they came to salute our foreign visitors, while the opposition march (which had a permit) wants to create violence”

So, what was he doing that day defending the pro-Chavez forces and getting involved in that confrontation? Finally, Mundarain magically reduces the number of dead to only nine, despite the names, the COFAVIC files and the cases handed over to the Attorney General’s office.

Who is worse Mundarain or Rangel? I am not so sure.

I find the People’s Ombudsman to be incredibly cynical. Today, in an interview on the radio he says:

“This is an institution that is being born and is at the service of the citizens, it can not be involved in the confrontation that people may have against Chávez or against me”

Well, I recall that as the military and the National Guard were repressing hundreds of “citizens” on February 27^th. , some of which were shot dead, others tortures and many repressed without mercy, the same People’s Ombudsman was standing in front of the theater where the G-15 meeting was taking place and defended the pro-Chavez activists who were there protected by the national guard and he argued: “The pro-Chavez supporters (who had no permit) can be here because they came to salute our foreign visitors, while the opposition march (which had a permit) wants to create violence”

So, what was he doing that day defending the pro-Chavez forces and getting involved in that confrontation? Finally, Mundarain magically reduces the number of dead to only nine, despite the names, the COFAVIC files and the cases handed over to the Attorney General’s office.

Who is worse Mundarain or Rangel? I am not so sure.

While the controversial land bill receives all of the attention, in Baruta, in the outskirts of Caracas a quiet revolution is taking place that would make Peru’ Hernando De Soto proud. De Soto has been arguing that the success of capitalism lies in the defense of property rights above everything, something uncommon in Latin America.

In the Baruta district of Caracas, the Planning Office has been organizing and registering the land and the property in the barrios which are built on municipal land. The idea is to give out title to some 15,000 families of the District. Baruta has already given title to some 190 families to their property. By doing this, each of the new owners would be able to borrow against the property. Even when the land involved is private, the municipality has negotiated with the owners in order to be able to transfer title to the property.

The idea is that in exchange for acquiring full property rights to the property, the owners also assume their responsibilities; paying municipal taxes and services and the municipality assumes the responsibility of providing all services.

One of the criticisms of the land bill was that those receiving the land had possession of the land but received no title. Economists believe that you need full property rights in order to be able to leverage the property borrowing money form banks and other financial institutions.

While Governments going back to Caldera’s in the 70’s have discussed such projects, this is the first case of a municipality actually sitting down and doing the required registry and planning in order to distribute the land. Hopefully, other municipalities will soon join. Venezuela is a country with 80% urban population. Moreover, the Government, either central or municipal owns 57% of the land in the country.

While the controversial land bill receives all of the attention, in Baruta, in the outskirts of Caracas a quiet revolution is taking place that would make Peru’ Hernando De Soto proud. De Soto has been arguing that the success of capitalism lies in the defense of property rights above everything, something uncommon in Latin America.

In the Baruta district of Caracas, the Planning Office has been organizing and registering the land and the property in the barrios which are built on municipal land. The idea is to give out title to some 15,000 families of the District. Baruta has already given title to some 190 families to their property. By doing this, each of the new owners would be able to borrow against the property. Even when the land involved is private, the municipality has negotiated with the owners in order to be able to transfer title to the property.

The idea is that in exchange for acquiring full property rights to the property, the owners also assume their responsibilities; paying municipal taxes and services and the municipality assumes the responsibility of providing all services.

One of the criticisms of the land bill was that those receiving the land had possession of the land but received no title. Economists believe that you need full property rights in order to be able to leverage the property borrowing money form banks and other financial institutions.

While Governments going back to Caldera’s in the 70’s have discussed such projects, this is the first case of a municipality actually sitting down and doing the required registry and planning in order to distribute the land. Hopefully, other municipalities will soon join. Venezuela is a country with 80% urban population. Moreover, the Government, either central or municipal owns 57% of the land in the country.

The Electoral Hall of the Venezuelan Supreme Court ratified its decision on the same calligraphy forms, ratifying its earlier decision and rebutting each of the reasons given by the Constitutional hall for voiding its earlier decision. The Electoral Hall asked the Full Court to decide the conflict of competence between the two Halls.

The decision which can be found here addresses all of the points raised by the Constitutional Hall, questions many of them and points to the illegalities the Constitutional Hall was involved in. Among the highlights:

-It reminds the Constitutional Hall that when it issued the order to the Electoral Hall to cease considering the original injunction, it refereed to a non-existent sentence by the Constitutional Hall.

-It notes that Ismael Garcia is not part of the process, a failure which the Constitutional hall failed to consider. Basically, the Electoral hall is saying that to review a decision, the party requesting the revision has to be part of the process, which Mr., Garcia was not.

-It ratifies that the Electoral Hall has the ability to review electoral cases and that this has been the jurisprudence in all cases, as well as being defined in Article 297 of the Constitution.

-The Electoral Hall does not acknowledge, like the Constitutional hall said, that it has disobeyed it.  It says it is not subordinate to the Constitutional Hall that said Hall had not proceeded legally to look into the case, it could not look into it and the person that requested the revision had no right to ask for it.

-The Electoral Hall says it is amazed that the Constitutional accuses it of not following procedure, ignoring the body of evidence that it did follow the required steps as it is registered in the notebooks of the Hall.

-Says the Constitutional Hall is going beyond its range of competence, assigning itself functions beyond what is established by the Constitution.

-It encourages that both Halls meet to find a solution to the conflict until the Full Court decides.

The Full Court could take up to two or three months to meet, but at the same time the Justices could give the matter urgency and a decision could be made much sooner. Thus, once again, the Electoral Hall, tells the Constitutional one that if it wants conflict it will have it and is ready to fight for its rights under the Constitution.

While you may think I did not blog at all this weekend, I actually did, except the result is in the orchids section, where I posted a few pictures of new flowers. I actually had a nice weekend, working on orchids and taking pictures of them. I actually had to take them a few times because they would not come out right. Digital photography ahs turned me into a reasonable photographer if you see my orchids. The instant feedback of digital photography makes a lot of difference, particularly with pictures of flowers where a slight change in angle or lights may change the color, the hues and the tones to the point that you no longer recognize them.

On Sunday, my mother, brother, sister  and their kids  came over with Sumito Estevez, one of the best Chefs in Venezuela who is a good friend of my brother’s and also a fellow physicist. While I love to eat, I am a terrible cook except for my famous or infamous barbecues; however, after seeing how a true cook does a barbecue, I realize what a lousy amateur I am. But I will not stop doing it anyway. Sumito is an extremely nice guy, Mac addict and superb cook, of course. Just in case, here is a picture (courtesy of the Tyromaniac) of the high strength cholesterol we have at barbecues here in Venezuela, as well as a picture of Sumito himself.

I actually wrote two articles for my blog this weekend and disliked them both when they were finished. One was a mock letter of Fidel Castro to the People’s Ombudsman which was meant to be funny, but when I was done, I simply did not like it. Some days the flow is just not there, I guess.

I also wanted to write about the opposition and the regional elections, but the subject can be so confusing, much like the opposition and Venezuela itself. Today I am taking another stab at it, hope that it works. I need a vacation and next week is Easter week when all of Venezuela shuts down, I will too. I plan to go to the beach, read, swin, relax and hope nothing happens here next week. If it does I will post remotely which is not perfect, but works.

While you may think I did not blog at all this weekend, I actually did, except the result is in the orchids section, where I posted a few pictures of new flowers. I actually had a nice weekend, working on orchids and taking pictures of them. I actually had to take them a few times because they would not come out right. Digital photography ahs turned me into a reasonable photographer if you see my orchids. The instant feedback of digital photography makes a lot of difference, particularly with pictures of flowers where a slight change in angle or lights may change the color, the hues and the tones to the point that you no longer recognize them.

On Sunday, my mother, brother, sister  and their kids  came over with Sumito Estevez, one of the best Chefs in Venezuela who is a good friend of my brother’s and also a fellow physicist. While I love to eat, I am a terrible cook except for my famous or infamous barbecues; however, after seeing how a true cook does a barbecue, I realize what a lousy amateur I am. But I will not stop doing it anyway. Sumito is an extremely nice guy, Mac addict and superb cook, of course. Just in case, here is a picture (courtesy of the Tyromaniac) of the high strength cholesterol we have at barbecues here in Venezuela, as well as a picture of Sumito himself.

I actually wrote two articles for my blog this weekend and disliked them both when they were finished. One was a mock letter of Fidel Castro to the People’s Ombudsman which was meant to be funny, but when I was done, I simply did not like it. Some days the flow is just not there, I guess.

I also wanted to write about the opposition and the regional elections, but the subject can be so confusing, much like the opposition and Venezuela itself. Today I am taking another stab at it, hope that it works. I need a vacation and next week is Easter week when all of Venezuela shuts down, I will too. I plan to go to the beach, read, swin, relax and hope nothing happens here next week. If it does I will post remotely which is not perfect, but works.