Ciao!

Wow, I actually understood the text. Spanish seems so easy. N.

mcentellas, interesting web page. look forward to seeing more of your opinions. was not sure you would see my response to your comments on the democracy center blog, here they are again:

mcentellas, read through that article about the 5 percent mas payments. first, there appears to be a difference of opinion on whether its obligatory or not. the vice president and government spokesman said it is not. second, it is only for public employees or congressmen that are members of the mas party.

re: ypfb, am sure its had its share of corruption. what institution in bolivia hasn't in the past? still, it actually did pretty well in the 80s and 90s prior to goni's privatization scheme. in fact, they contributed more to government coffers then the big multinationals ever did. from 1985-96 ypfb contributed on average US$340 million a year to the national treasury, amounting to about 40 percent of the government's income. after privatization, the income from the gas sector, despite ten times more reserves and huge investment, was in fact less. in 2003, gas companies contributed a little more than $230 million (see http://www.cesu.umss.edu.bo/cesu/Pro_Hid/gp19.html) with taxes on top of royalties, it was still less than the ypfb contribution.

as for bonosol, your concerns are legitimate. but its not just alvaro's word, its by government decree that ypfb has to pay into bonosol the same as it did under the prior system. read this from today's la prensa:
El vicepresidente de la República, Álvaro García Linera, aseguró ayer que con la transferencia de las acciones de los bolivianos en las petroleras capitalizadas a la estatal YPFB el pago del Bono Solidario (Bonosol) está garantizado.
El Decreto Supremo 28711 establece que YPFB se convertirá en accionista de Andina, Chaco y Transredes, y entregará al Fondo de Capitalización Colectiva (FCC) “los dividendos que anualmente obtenga de las acciones transferidas”.
http://www.laprensa.com.bo/hoy/negocios/negocios01.htm

Guillermo:

Thanks for the comment. Yes, I agree that there's a great deal of confusiong about the 5% salary decree. Likewise, my skepticism of YPFB is a matter of "wait & see". My complaing of the Democracy Center was mainly that it hasn't addressed either of these concerns. I'm frequently annoyed that their "unique brand of investigative journalism" only works in one ideological direction. They do very good in-depth investigations & ask tough questions of people/plans they disapprove of. But they've not done the same to people like Evo, Garcia Linera, or other syndicalist leaders in the country.

Finally, as for what YPFB contributed to the national treasure before/after privatization. Often, that depends on who's looking at what figures. From what I've seen, YPFB did fairly well, but it came at a strong political cost (using the company to finance corrupt leaders) and long-term economic costs (the company never had the capital to expand production, which would take billions, not millions). But, of course, this is a matter of debate.

I'd also like to hear the Democracy Center comment on YPFB's books being handed over to the Venezuelan oil company, and the relationshio between Evo & Chavez. I'm afraid Democracy Center's ideological blinders leave a large gap of "investigative journalism" left to be explored. Until they fix that, until they truly become journalists interested in digging for the hard truths, all they'll continue to be is a slightly slicker indymedia outpos, I'm afraid.