Yaraslau Ramanchuk: “Everything related to Belarusian oil project in Venezuela is murky secret”

President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez said three additional oil fields were offered to Belarus, press service of the Security Council of Belarus informs, referring to agreements reached at the meeting of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and State Secretary of the Security Council Viktar Sheiman. Yaraslau Ramanchuk, head of Mises research center, thinks it won’t affect financial situation in the country. “The budget adopted for 2008 has no such source of income as profit from Belarusian-Venezuelan joint enterprise,” Yaraslau Ramanchuk explained his position in the interview to the Charter’97 press center.

“Two, three, five Belarusian oil-wells in Venezuela, what’s the difference! The country in whole and common Belarusian citizens have no use in it. It’s an extremely profitable project only for some people, having a direct relation to it, but we can only guess the concrete names. It is a clearly commercial enterprise. The budget adopted for 2008 has no such source of income as profit from Belarusian-Venezuelan joint enterprise. So, everything related to the Belarusian oil project in Venezuela is a murky secret,” the economist is sure.

According to him, the process is “absolutely confidential, there’s no even a hint at transparency. It naturally breeds many rumours up to this joint enterprise will become a cover for a number of not rather “clean” Chavez’s projects, including drug trafficking to Europe. If add to it that taxes paid by the enterprise will go to the Venezuelan budget, and profit – to pockets of particular persons, the conclusion naturally suggests itself,” Yaraslau Ramanchuk says.

The economist supposes if the joint Belarusian-Venezuelan oil production enterprise were a really serious enterprise, which profit went to the state budget, the information on it would be available to any Belarusian. “We would know, how much, where to and for what purpose facilities are committed and how much profit is planned to secure. But we just know about abstract oil production by Belarus in Venezuela, but not about what it will cost us and how much will go to the state budget,” Yaraslau Ramanchuk stressed.