Continues to provide some truly amazing leaks about corruption in Venezuela.

infodioLeaks

One of the first questions ever asked to Derwick Associates, when it became known that it had been gifted 12 contracts in non-bidding processes, was to produce copy of said contracts.

After all, Derwick was believed to be a Venezuelan private company, run by Venezuelans, that had been contracted by Venezuelan State's institutions, and that had been paid with Venezuelan public funds.

To be certain, it is not illegal for a private company, either Venezuelan or otherwise, to contract with the State.

What is extremely rare, and illegal, is for the Venezuelan State to be handing contracts without bidding, to companies without a track record, and when questioned on what / how had public funds been spent refuse to answer.

 

That is exactly what happened to Cesar Batiz, the journalist who broke the mega corruption scandal involving Derwick Associates and BARIVEN (a PDVSA subsidiary) back in 2011.

PDVSA is a State-owned corporation.

By law, it is open to financial scrutiny, if and when such scrutiny occurs.

Therefore, it can not excuse not revealing expenditure on the basis of contractual confidentiality agreements.

There is nothing in Venezuela's body of legislation that allows any public institutions to, basically, reject accountability through appropriate mechanisms and do whatever it wants with public funds.

For instance, when a journalist files a request for information on contracts signed by any given public institution, said institutions have to honour such requests.

It is not a question of whether the institution wants to comply; it must, so long as public funds are at stake.

Alek Boyd