Oil and underdevelopment

In 1922 it was the blowout of the Barroso No. 2 oil well in Cabimas, Zulia. Crude oil came out of the underground during nine days, nonstop. This event showed the world our energy potential.  From that moment on, the black gold or devil's excrement —depending on your opinion about the role oil plays in Venezuela— turned into the backbone of social, political and economical issues in our country.

In 1939 the North American writer Clarence Horn wrote an article about the political and social situation in Venezuela. Seventeen years after the Barroso No. 2 well's blowout, Horn wonder where did the oil incomes go: where were the routes, the infrastructure works, the hospitals, the social security system; and why, by the year 1939, the working class was still living in houses made out of bahareque and moriche palms roofs, while they suffered from syphilis, leprosy and malaria. The North American writer didn't hesitate to give an answer to his own questions:  Those incomes went to Juan Vicente Gomez's and his supporters' pockets (taken from Venezuela Política y Petróleo, written by the former president Romulo Betancourt in 1967).

Now, in 2015, we feel the same way Horn felt: indignant because of how oil benefited just a few during Gomez's dictatorship; but more than indignant we feel disgusted. After all that oil Venezuela is an example of how to invest the State's income to weaken its institutions and impoverish its citizens. Our country depends on what others produce, the agriculture is abandoned, the industrial sector is paralyzed; poor salaries, a health system lacking supplies and infrastructure, uncompetitive education, a high crime rate and our institutions are considered to be the most corrupt in Latin America and among the less transparent in the world (according to Transparency International).

But... where did oil incomes go in these past 16 years? Those incomes are now in the pockets of the ones who speak about socialism and homeland, in fictitious projects, phantom companies, bribes and loyalties, imports with surcharge, embezzlement and official extravagance, secret bank accounts.  According to the Central Bank of Venezuela, Venezuela has received more than 500.000 million dollars from oil revenues. And, according to former Finance Minister Jorge Giordani, due to corruption in Venezuela there was a leakage of 25000 million dollars, at least.

That amount could have been turned into highways, schools, hospitals, big infrastructure works, modernization of public administration and its institutions,  enhancement of decentralization... but none of that happened and now we're a deeply backward country.

Maybe our political class hasn't understood that oil is supposed to contribute to our development instead of being an instrument to drive us to underdevelopment.