Venezuela

The former Venezuelan representative to Transparency International has published a paper at Cato on how corruption is now rife in Venezuela. Some quotes:

The state-owned oil company ceased publishing its consolidated annual financial statements in 2003, and Chávez has created new state-run financial institutions, whose operations are also opaque, that spend funds at the discretion of the executive.

Corruption now permeates all levels of Venezuelan society. Bureaucrats now rarely follow existing bidding regulations, and ordinary citizens must pay bribes to accomplish bureaucratic
transactions and have to suffer rampant neglect of basic government services. All this has been encouraged by a general environment of impunity: officers implicated in major corruption scandals have sometimes been removed from their posts, but they have not otherwise been held legally accountable.

According to the Venezuelan Central Bank, about $22.5 billion has been transferred to accounts abroad by the Chávez government since 2004. About $12 billion of that amount remains unaccounted for.

So much for the people’s hero!

Hat Tip; Act on Campus