Diego J. Gonzalez points out an interesting paradox: while the government continues with its proposed media crimes law - punishing those who spread so-called false information - the government itself is guilty of misrepresenting information about PDVSA's productivity, whose resources the nation's future depends on. As published in El Universal:
If the Media Crimes Act is enacted into law, the personnel of PDVSA, the Ministry of Energy and the Bolivarian News Agency would have to go to prison for what they say and write. The main lie that has been broadcast that "now Pdvsa is for everyone," but it is only those who support the government, because it does not belong to the more than 20,000 who have been fired or who appear on the electoral roll nor does it belong to the members of unions that do not support Chavez, as Minister of Energy has said.
Other lies: it will build a gas pipeline to Argentina, it will export gas to Colombia in 3 years, the domestic market consumes 499,000 barrels per day, PDVSA will build 14 refineries overseas that process Venezuelan crude, and the biggest lie, which the President recently told Spanish authorities: "(&) It is estimated that from next year the Junin Block 7 of the Orinoco Oil Belt is an early production of 200,000 barrels per day. It's technically impossible to move from a production of zero to 200,000 barrels per day. This will not happen in 5 months or a year, neither Orinoco nor in some other oil field in the world.
In terms of misinformation PDVSA will have to explain why it had to buy $39.5 billion dollars in oil and oil products in 2008, who did it buy it from and what purpose this purchase serves. And finally, why hasn't the Energy Ministry published the results of the petroleum industry for 2007 and 2008?
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