Irregularities, negligence and corruption in the public administration reveals Vendata in six journalistic notes

“Between 2007 and 2013, four military personnel continuously commanded the National Treasury Office, and four of the last seven treasurers are sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury.” Thus begins the first of six journalistic notes made this year from the databases of Vendata.

The other five notes deal with the participation of women in boards of directors of state companies; the decrease in ministerial assistance to indigenous peoples, despite being one of the flagship speeches of the ruling party; the presence of the military in key positions in public companies and their relationship with allegations of corruption; and how the president of the Supreme Court of Justice received more than 91 million dollars in 2018 through the Forensic Gaceta Foundation, publishing house of the TSJ.

Carried out by journalists coordinated by Transparency Venezuela and the Press and Society Institute of Venezuela, these works were prepared with the databases that Vendata.org has transformed into open, comparable and editable data, for the consultation of researchers and citizens. Today this data mining reaches around 300 thousand items.

The largest open database in Venezuela

Faced with the challenges posed by the constrained information situation in Venezuela, the two non-governmental organizations that have among their priorities the defense and promotion of the right of access to information of public interest, have joined important efforts over the last year to expand and improve the capabilities of Vendata, which has four databases fed with information that was in non-editable formats and that has been emptied into tables that allow filters to be applied to establish relationships, comparisons and analysis, both numerical and qualitative.

The category of memories and accounts It has the data published by the main organizations of the Citizen Power in the period 2011 to 2015. 4.795 pages of 15 documents in PDF format were reviewed; 248 tables were extracted and 42 databases were systematized for a total of 39.794 processed data.

There are 195 thousand 489 records and 3 thousand 189 documents from 12 years of Official Gazettes manually emptied and broken down into appointments of officials, creation of state companies, approval of laws, sanctions, additional credits, budgets, expropriations and military promotions, among many other data.

Vendata also has State-Owned Enterprises, which includes 14 data from 312 companies. This data is categorized by company name, sector, object, background, affiliation body, location, authorities, origin (creation, expropriation, confiscation), goods and services, corruption cases, and results per year.

The personal information of all the deputies, collected by the Transparencia Venezuela Parliamentary Observer from the National Assembly website, from documents provided by the political parties and by the assembly members themselves, is available in our fourth database, National Assembly. Appointments of officials, creation of State companies, approval of laws, sanctions, additional credits, budget, expropriations and military promotions are some of the details that are disaggregated in the databases.

With these advantages, Vendata has been the tool selected to carry out six journalistic works in 2019, which address essential issues of public life such as the defense of vulnerable groups, environmental protection, gender approach, or usurpation of power, crime and embezzlement of public funds.

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Sixth and last note of this saga, "Maikel Moreno's petty cash box received more than 91 million dollars in 2018", shows how the Forensic Gazette Foundation of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) received, through six additional credits, 2.908.918.973,7 sovereign bolivars, which is equivalent to more than 91 million dollars at the official rate according to the Currency System Market Floating Complementary Exchange Rate (Dicom).

The actions and omissions of the State have generated severe environmental damage in National Parks and protected areas. The lack of studies, inventories and monitoring of the state offices of Environment and Inparques, according to audits by the General Comptroller of the Republic, activities, works and illegal settlements in four national parks caused dramatic consequences for these ecosystems, according to "Official audits reveal threats to the preservation of national parks."

"Military power also reached state companies." This work found that, of 576 state-owned companies, at least 60 have a military as the highest authority. Among those led by the military, PDVSA, Corpoelec and Cuspal stand out, which manage strategic sectors such as oil, electricity and food. In recent years, 60 active or retired soldiers have been the top heads of state companies, where only inefficiency and corruption explain the disastrous results.

“On the boards of directors of State-Owned Companies, women were relegated” is the article that used data just entered into Vendata about the composition of the directives of state companies. Of the 226 EPEs known to hold senior positions, only 27 are headed by women. "Ministerial assistance to indigenous peoples decreased 80% in five years" is the investigative note that dismantles the government's populist rhetoric in favor of vulnerable populations. The delivery of basic necessities to indigenous people, such as supplies and tools for agricultural activities, decreased 66,3% only between 2012 and 2014.

The first published note "The office with the charges that take the treasure" It states that from 2007 to 2013, four soldiers continuously commanded the National Treasury Office and four of the last seven treasurers are sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury. The review in Vendata It allowed us to have the map of the positions of the national ex-treasurers in the public administration and their shady surroundings.

Today the main challenge for Vendata is to continue releasing data to confront crime and corruption, but, above all, to build a culture of transparency in Venezuela where citizens assume their power to monitor and control public management and the ability to influence strategic issues for the overcoming the crisis.