June 10, 2017

Venezuelan creditors, what if from now on oil belongs in equal parts to the citizens and not to the government?

I refer to Jonathan Wheatley’s and Robin Wigglesworth’s “Venezuela’s Russian debt tangle heightens risk of default” June 10.

Sir, had Venezuela not have had oil, there would be no so much financing of its plain lousy governments.

Equally, had the oil in Venezuela belonged to Venezuelan private citizens and not to the government of turn, its governments would not have had access to as much credit.

Venezuela’s current constitution states: “Article 12: Mineral and hydrocarbon deposits of any nature that exist within the territory of the nation, beneath the territorial sea bed, within the exclusive economic zone and on the continental shelf, are the property of the Republic, are of public domain, and therefore inalienable and not transferable.”

What if there was a change in the constitution to: “Article 12: Mineral and hydrocarbon deposits of any nature that exist within the territory of the nation, beneath the territorial sea bed, within the exclusive economic zone and on the continental shelf, are the property in equal shares of all Venezuelan born and alive citizens, and therefore inalienable and not transferable.”

Then all the oil revenues would belong to Venezuelan citizens and be distributed to them by means of an oil revenue sharing mechanism.

Then those who current creditors of Venezuela, and who must have been perfectly aware of how lousy its government was by only looking at the risk premiums paid, would have those risk premiums to reflect the reality of the risks of lending to such lousy governments as Venezuela’s

In such circumstance could a tanker that carries oil owned by all the Venezuelan private citizens be embargoed?

Would a judge order that embargo knowing that, as a direct result of it, many Venezuelan citizens, old and young, with real names and faces, would then die because of lack of food and medicines?


@PerKurowski