Saturday, September 06, 2008

The Miami Venezuelan Maletagate trial part III: Jury picked out, trial begins on Tuesday As the Jury has been picked out in the Maletagate trial, we learn that Globovision will have a reporter at the trial, which will help us learn all of the details of the case. Her name is Verioska Velasco and you can hear one of her reports here and as you can see they try to establish the link between the Chavista candidate for Mayor of the Metropolitan area, Aristobulo Isturiz, and the case, as Isturiz was Minister of Education when the funds from that Ministry were moved to an unspecified bank by Duran and Kauffmann who received a juicy commission. Duran’s lawyer tried to have the charges against his client dismissed arguing that Duran was not aware of the obscure legislation being issued to try him. The judge has already dismissed that possibility, saying this was irrelevant and dismissing the argument. The Judge has yet to rule on a separate motion by the defense to bar any evidence of prior crimes by Duran and Kauffmann as irrelevant to the case. The Prosecutor however, has argued that this is quite relevant as it shows Duran already had strong ties to the Government, which were a prelude to offering Guido Antonini money to keep silent as to the origin of the US$ 800,000 found in the suitcase as he entered Argentina. The Prosecutors argument is that while Antonini and Duran were friends, Duran’s offer was made in order to help the Venezuelan officials he was working for. In the earlier stages of the case Duran told FBI agents about his corrupt exploits in Venezuela which now the Prosecution wants to use in the case as evidence. The jury selection was completed in two days and the trial should begin on Tuesday. The prosecution has videos and tapes of the conversations between those accused, of which Duran is the only not to plead guilty by now, and Guido Antonini as they tried to convince him to stay silent. If the judge allows the testimony of the prior illegal acts by Duran and Kauffmann in Venezuela, the Prosecution is expected to have Kauffmann testify on all of the techniques and schemes used by him and Duran to obtain juicy commissions and pay off Venezuelan Government officials many of which are still in office. 9:16:10 PM    comment []

Electric sector begins to show Chavez' recipe for disaster Hugo Chavez cut short his visit to South Africa, reportedly to take charge of the electricity problem after last Monday’s blackout, but the truth is that he came back early because as Venezuela’s power went on the blink on Monday, reports came out showing a drop in the Government’s popularity which was not going to be helped by the nationwide power shortage. Then, in an improvised nationwide TV address Chavez tried his old formula of blaming the past, saying he is in charge and promising that in three months the whole problem will be solved. Of course, the deadline is right after the regional elections, just so that nobody can say he promised and did not deliver before then. And there is no way he can deliver, because his speech was a potpourri of lies and incoherent facts, none of which are based on the reality of the country’s electric grid. In fact, even the simplistic explanation given by the Government, a sudden fault in one of the trunk lines, seemed fishy as not everything on this side of the guilty fault actually lost power. The reality is that the bombastic energy plan announced in December 2006, has not been able to fulfill its goals for the electric sector in its first two years, as most projects are still in the drawing board and they are not even at the stage of ordering equipment. Meanwhile, there has been little investment and maintainance since 1998. Chavez suggested that there had been no maintenance in the Tacoa plant since 1981, but this was one of those lies he delivered with a straight face, which had no foundation, Tacoa was built in 1978 and suffered a fire in 1982 that required major repairs. And a similar charge about Guri holds no water (yes, it’s a pun), as without Guri the problem would be quite severe. Chavez also lied about Caruache, which he says was in shambles when he arrived in 1998. Nothing further from the truth, the Caruache plant was on schedule in 1997. As an example, an engineer formerly in charge of Planning at Edelca, which runs Guri, said that at the Planta Centro power plant, one unit stopped working in 2000, another in 2002 and the remainder lines are functioning at 50% capacity. Chavez suggested that one of the units in Planta Centro was going on line as if he had bought it and delivered it as part of investment under him, but the truth is that this unit broke down and has finally been fixed. Chavez mentioned projects, which are really not part of the solution. He spoke of 32 projects but none are major and the one he devoted the most time about, is a regional project with no direct link to the national network. The truth is that Venezuela has daily rationing of power and blackouts are the daily fare in the interior of Venezuela This was the second large blackout this year and Caracas, where blackouts were rare before the nationalization of Electricidad de Caracas, has joined the country in suffering from regular problems. Like many other things in the country, the power grid suffers from too much politics and too little management as military displaced professional managers in the major electric corporations and professional teams were disbanded. Add no investment and lack of maintenance and this was another Chavez recipe for disaster in the making. Add a small emergency power plant to the future needs of your home. This problem will not be solved anytime soon. 1:47:16 PM    comment []