Published at: 07/05/2025 09:00 PM

(EL NACIONAL and LA ESFERA, May 5, 1961)

• With annual inflation of 1.6%, fiscal revenues of U$D 777,581.39 (equivalent today to 7,770, or millions of U$D) and classified as the third largest oil exporter in the world (3.5 million barrels per day), President Rómulo Betancourt enacted hunger measures for the working, working and peasant classes that brought him to power. Behaving like an underhanded traitor.
• Advised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the New York bank, he ordered the mass dismissal of public employees and construction workers, in addition to a 10% reduction in salaries and a cut in the State's payroll. This was the first package of the Punto Fijo Pact.
• This was intended to close an alleged gap in the fiscal deficit of Bs. 533 million to transfer labor and layoffs to the private sector. The latter never happened.
• In 1961, Venezuela had 8,453,106 inhabitants, 356 tons of gold in monetary reserve, and maintained a sustained production of 3,500,000 barrels of crude oil per day, at an average price of 2 U$D per barrel. The annual growth rate was 1.6%. In other words, that was looting.
• Not counting revenues from concessions granted to foreign companies for iron mining, the steel operation and the Reynolds aluminum processing plant, as well as other traditional exports from our formal economy.
• Betancourt's deceptive and twisted rhetoric, about an alleged economic crisis, the fiscal deficit and the payroll problems of the public administration, were some of the many pretexts that served to mortgage our wealth.
• To this end, he resorted to the large indebtedness, under unfavorable conditions, of 1 billion U$D (equivalent today to 10 billion U$D), which only favored the Chase Manhattan Bank, owned by his great friend Nelson Rockefeller. Owner of half of Venezuela in that era of looting, surrender, waste and waste.

Mazo News Team