EspañolThe 526 companies in Venezuela that have come under control of the federal government since Hugo Chávez — and now Nicolás Maduro — took power have bled money ever since, a new investigation founds. It said that those companies have lost millions of dollars.

NGO Transparencia Venezuela published a report this week showing that between 2001 and mid-2017, the Venezuelan government went from owning 74 companies to owning 526, nearly all of which have suffered as a result.

As a comparison, Venezuela’s government owns 10 times as many companies as Argentina, and four times as many as Brazil.

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In most cases, Chávez’s administration, as well as Maduro’s more recently, appropriated companies by any means necessary: expropriations, confiscations, nationalizations, “reestablishments” and renegotiations, according to the Transparencia Venezuela report.

The study focused on eight companies specifically, which in 2016 posted a combined loss of US $386 million.

“This money surpasses healthcare, education and housing spending for all of 2016,” Economist Christi Rangel, who coordinated the research, said.

The companies with the highest losses include Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state owned oil company. Its estimated losses come in at around $232 million. Because Venezuela’s economy relies heavily on crude oil exports, those losses reflect a larger problem.

Power plant Corpoelec, meanwhile, lost $45 million.

“Overall, the result, the common elements observed in all of these sectors, is that production decreased in all of them, while payrolls increased significantly,” Rangel said.

Source: Diario Las Américas.