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 Memoirs and Accounts category contains data published by the main Citizen Power bodies from 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.

The records amount to 195,489 and 3,189 documents from 12 years of Official Gazettes , manually extracted 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 members of parliament, collected by the Parliamentary Observer of Transparency Venezuela from the National Assembly website, documents provided by political parties, and the members themselves, is available in our fourth database, National Assembly . Appointments of officials, creation of state-owned enterprises, approval of laws, sanctions, supplementary appropriations, budget, expropriations, and military promotions are some of the details broken down 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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The sixth and final installment of this saga, “Maikel Moreno’s petty cash 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 Complementary Floating Market Exchange Rate System (Dicom).

The actions and omissions of the State have caused severe environmental damage in national parks and protected areas. According to audits by the Comptroller General of the Republic, the lack of studies, inventories, and monitoring by state environmental agencies and the National Parks Institute (Inparques) has led to dramatic consequences for these ecosystems, as reported in “Official Audits Reveal Threats to the Preservation of National Parks.”

“Military power has also reached state-owned enterprises.” This study found that, of 576 state-owned companies, at least 60 have a military officer as their top executive. Among those led by military personnel are PDVSA, Corpoelec, and Cuspal, which manage strategic sectors such as oil, electricity, and food. In recent years, 60 active or retired military officers have served as the top executives of state-owned companies, where only inefficiency and corruption can 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.