Rafik El-Guehef

“In the 1980s and 1990s, Venezuela’s Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (widely known by its acronym, PDVSA), was one of the world’s most politically independent and well-managed national oil companies. In the early 2000s, President Hugo Chávez stripped PDVSA of its independent authority and replaced its top officials with loyal followers. He then placed PDVSA in charge of administering a new set of social programs, closely tied to his political machine. By 2004, two-thirds of PDVSA’s budget went to social programs, not petroleum-related activities. As its social programs grew, PDVSA’s transparency fell. After 2003, its financial disclosures dropped sharply, and independent observers found its activities increasingly difficult to monitor.73”
― Michael L. Ross, The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations