Eighty percent of Vargas state's funds are deposited in seized bank

In the state of Vargas, the employees of the governor’s office were concerned because they have not been paid their second bi-weekly salary of November (Photo: Cruz Sojo)

Economy
According to government sources, 80 percent of the funds of Vargas state's government, including the payroll's individual accounts of 5,000 health, police and education employees, payments to contractors and service providers, and the savings of the governor's office of the state of Vargas, are frozen at Banco Canarias.

The difficult financial situation caused uneasiness in the administrative staff of the regional government, who held a meeting with representatives of the Human Resources Department of the State of Vargas. They were informed that they would be allowed to transfer money from Banco de Venezuela as of Wednesday. "We hope that they keep their word because we are employees and we depend on our salaries. To top it all, the governor's office had already paid the profit-sharing benefits and although I paid some debts and did some shopping, I need my money," said an employee outside the offices of the bank in the town of Catia La Mar, who requested anonymity.

The employees said that they are "paying the consequences of cronyism," because, "since the arrival of (General Jorge Luis) García Carneiro" the accounts of the governor's office in the banks Bancoro, Fondo Común, Venezuela, Banfoandes and Canarias were transferred to the latter. Only the trust accounts are deposited in the Banco de Venezuela.

It was learnt that the governor and his cabinet are confident that the Minister of Finance and the Bank Deposit Guarantee and Protection Fund (Fogade) will provide a quick and timely response and disburse the required funds. El Universal requested an interview with the governor of the state of Vargas to address the issue, but no reply has been given so far.

Caracas Mayor's office has funds frozen
Meanwhile, the Capital District transferred USD 6.7 million on Friday, November 20, to an account of the Metropolitan Mayor's Office at Banco Canarias to pay workers' salaries. The administration of Caracas Mayor's Office went to the bank on Monday, November 23 to use the funds and they were informed that they could not have the money. "We sent five communications to Banco Canarias informing them that the money would be used to pay the payroll. We warned the bank's management that if they did not release the funds, we were going to inform our staff that the salary delay was entirely the fault of the bank," said the Secretary of Finance of Caracas's Mayor Office, Héctor Urguelles.

On Friday 27, the Vice President of Banco Canarias said to the Mayor's Office that to give them the money, "they should send them the payroll." Given this irregularity, the office headed by Mayor Antonio Ledezma sent on Monday a letter to the bank saying that it "was exceeding its functions," but that day, the government decided to seize the Bank.

A group of workers of the Caracas Metropolitan Mayor's Office went to the Superintendence of Banks and to Fogade to ask for their wages. But they did not get any information. The workers announced that they would start protests to demand the payment of their salaries and request the Executive branch of government a USD 118.14 million credit. Officials of the Office of the President have suspended on two occasions meetings to deal with the problem.

Translated by Gerardo Cárdenas

Nadeska Noriega Ávila / Jorge Hernández