Don’t Touch the Diesel!

The Government has also hit out at suggestions that it owes for previous shipments of diesel oil from Venezuela and that a tanker cannot be discharged because G.O.B. hasn’t paid its bill.  A press statement, over the weekend, calls the delay ‘temporary’ and as a result of ‘unanticipated difficulties’ for the Venezuelan state-run company PDVSA.  But Opposition Leader John Briceño is skeptical.

John Briceño

John Briceño, Leader of the Opposition

“My sources are telling me that the Government owes as much as five shipments of fuel. Is that true? I don’t know, but that’s what I have been told. I know the Government issued a weak press release stating that it’s not their fault, that it is some problem with PDVSA and PUMA and whatever it is. It could be so, because probably Government pays PUMA and then PUMA pays PDVSA. So if the Government is not paying PUMA, PDVSA is going to have a problem with PUMA because they want to make sure that they get their monies. The point is that we are rationing diesel right now. There are already some customers that can’t get diesel for their trucks and for their vehicles and to be able to do work. Diesel is used for the productive sector. Our economy is already on its knees, there was very little to no growth last year; this year we see the same. And when we have these uncertainties, it doesn’t help; it only makes matters worse.”

Diesel remains available countrywide and the interruption is expected to be corrected by the middle of the week, but PUMA has made alternate arrangements to bring in diesel fuel from other sources, reportedly Guatemala, to cover the shortfall.