CARACAS – Venezuela said on Tuesday it would start using revenues from a US-brokered oil sale to shore up its battered currency, as families waited in anguish for more prisoners to be released. 

Interim president Delcy Rodriguez confirmed that her country had received US$300 million from Washington’s sale of Venezuelan crude and said she would use it to prop up the bolivar against the dollar.

The dollar is Venezuela’s de facto currency, legalised by ousted leader Nicolas Maduro in 2019 to fight hyperinflation. A six-year-old US embargo on Venezuelan oil has led to a shortage of greenbacks, however, causing the dollar’s value to rocket.

On the black market, dollars have traded recently for up to 100% more than the official rate. Rodriguez, who succeeded Maduro after his capture by US forces in a bombing raid on Caracas on 3 January, said the new oil revenues would be used to “stabilise” the foreign exchange market.
She added that doing so would help “protect the income and purchasing power of our workers.”

US president Donald Trump backed Maduro’s former deputy, Rodriguez, to lead the country, provided she gives US oil majors access to Venezuela’s rich oil reserves.

Rodriguez has been trying to appease him without alienating pro-Maduro hardliners in her administration.

On Monday, parliament, which is controlled by her brother Jorge Rodriguez, announced plans to reform 29 laws, including those on foreign investment in the oil sector.

Currently, foreign companies are only allowed to operate through joint ventures with state-owned oil firm PDVSA, which insists on retaining a majority stake.

“Foreign investment needs to be protected and profitable,” Jorge Rodriguez argued.

In a signal of the government’s intent to work with US oil companies, Delcy Rodriguez on Monday appointed a US-educated banker to head the country’s main investment agency.

Calixto Ortega, a former head of the country’s central bank, was previously posted as a diplomat to Houston, the city at the centre of the US oil refining industry.

“Maybe we can get her involved in some way. I would love to be able to do that,” he told reporters in Washington.

Machado, who is still touring the US capital, insisted Tuesday there could be no real change in Venezuela until all political prisoners are released. 

– Nampa/AFP