Briefing

Venezuelans Earn Little to Nothing

The Venezuelan Observatory of Finance published its first report on the Workers’ Salaries Index. The percentage of salaries paid in dollars went from 17.4% in 2020 to 46% in 2021. Union leader Mauro Zambrano said that sanitary personnel in 17 hospitals have been threatened for speaking openly about their inadequate working conditions.

Naky Soto
  • The Venezuelan Observatory of Finance published its first report on the Workers’ Salaries Index. The study revealed the inequality that the economic crisis has caused in the country:
    •  Workers in the private sector are paid around 70 dollars a month, which, even when it isn’t enough, it’s better than public workers, whose salaries are around 4.7 dollars. 
    • Economist Omar Zambrano explained that salaries grew by 22.7% from January 2020 to January 2021 mainly due to the dollarization of the private sector. 
    • The percentage of salaries paid in dollars went from 17.4% in 2020 to 46% in 2021. 
  • The speaker of Maduro’s Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez accused the caretaker government of “stealing assets” of the Republic, 53 million dollars. Rodríguez called deputies elected in 2015 “terrorists”, and said all members of political party Voluntad Popular are involved. Without explaining where or how he got the information, Rodríguez said that OFAC gave the caretaker government over 100 million dollars in 2020. 
  • Jorge Rodríguez said that the regime’s Assembly will subpoena Seguros Mercantil to explain the payments on insurance policies for the 2015 deputies, the amounts, who they covered and who paid. 
    • Rodríguez didn’t explain who paid for his recent trip to Switzerland nor did he justify the size of the delegation traveling with him. 
    • He didn’t answer where the funds to pay for over half of the 11.3 million doses through the COVAX mechanism, nor about Fedecámaras’ vaccination plan proposal. 
    • He said the national plan was designed by the Health Ministry. 
  • The Delegate Commission approved more than 10 million dollars to pay the rest of the debt associated with the defense of assets abroad. 
    • The funds will come from an account of the Venezuelan Central Bank abroad, where there are resources frozen because of sanctions. 
    • The OFAC has to approve this payment. 
    • Carmen Elisa Hernández was ratified as the president of the board of directors of Monómeros S.A, a position that she’s had since August, 20th, 2019. 
    • Juan Guaidó congratulated the newly elected president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso.
  • Maduro got creative with the “historic” dimension of April, 13th, 2002. He ordered “a war of all the people for the defense of sovereignty” in Apure. “Count on the Assembly to power the growth of the militias,” said Nicolás’s AN deputy Antonio Benavides, on the occasion of the militia’s anniversary. 
  • Maduro’s Assembly continues to pave the way for installing the Communal State. On Tuesday, they approved the first Draft Law for the National Communal Parliament. 
  • The deputies of Maduro’s Assembly Luis Eduardo Martínez, José Gregorio Correa, and Oscar Ronderos, tweeted a photo of their visit to the European Union headquarters. 
  • Health commissioner José Manuel Olivares said that vaccination must be depoliticized and that efforts must go towards running more tests and increasing hospitalization capabilities. He thinks it’s important to invest in the local infrastructure to strengthen the cold chain logistics and keep the purchased doses at the required temperatures. 
  • Seven healthcare workers died between April 9th and 13th of COVID-19 in Miranda, Lara, Táchira and Caracas. 
  • Union leader Mauro Zambrano said last night that sanitary personnel in 17 hospitals have been threatened for speaking openly about their inadequate working conditions. 
  • Aixa López, president of the Committee of Blackout Victims, warned that failures of the electric system severely affect COVID-19 patients. She said that there were 38,004 power failures in the first quarter of the year. 
  • CEPAZ documented at least 88 acts of persecution and criminalization of press workers and human rights activists, like threats, harassment, arbitrary detentions and censorship in March. 
  • The Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons reported that the tuberculosis outbreak in the Cabimas prison in Zulia has left 117 infected inmates, 72 of which are in severe conditions. 
  • Acceso a la Justicia said that according to Official Gazette No. 42.098, NGOs must now register before the Office against Organized Crime and Terrorist Financing. It’s a method to force NGOs to disclose where they obtain funds and who benefits from it. 
  • AKA Iván Márquez, leader of the FARC dissidents, read a communique saying that his faction “doesn’t engage in military action against the Armed Forces of neighboring countries”. 
  • A Spanish court confirmed that the file of Delcygate, the investigation on Delcy Rodríguez’s trip to the Madrid-Barajas airport in 2020, has been filed after a recommendation of the Prosecutor’s Office, saying that if she remained in the Schengen area, there wasn’t a violation on the prohibition of entering the European Union. 
  • The number of Venezuelans residing in Spain increased by 53.3% compared to 2019, and it’s now 152,017 citizens, according to data published by the Spanish Permanent Migration Observatory. 

Naky Soto

Naky gets called Naibet at home and at the bank. She coordinates training programs for an NGO. She collects moments and turns them into words. She has more stories than freckles.

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