CARACAS – Venezuelan opposition leader Dinorah Figuera has directly challenged Diosdado Cabello over responsibility for the long-running crisis surrounding CITGO, accusing the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro of driving one of Venezuela’s most important international assets into financial trouble.
“Diosdado, those who bankrupted CITGO were you: Chávez, Nicolás Maduro and that National Assembly,” Figuera said in response to Cabello.
Her remarks come amid a renewed exchange of accusations over CITGO, the U.S.-based refining company owned through Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA.
Figuera rejected attempts to place responsibility for CITGO’s problems on the Venezuelan opposition, arguing instead that decisions taken during the Chávez and Maduro administrations created the conditions that eventually placed the company at risk.
The dispute over responsibility is politically and legally complicated.
CITGO has spent years at the center of litigation involving creditors seeking payment for debts and arbitration awards connected to Venezuela and PDVSA. Those claims have resulted in extensive proceedings in U.S. courts involving shares in CITGO’s parent company.
For Venezuela, the stakes are particularly high. CITGO has historically been one of the country’s most valuable assets abroad, with refining and fuel-distribution operations in the United States.
Its future has therefore become a major political issue, with both Chavismo and the opposition accusing each other of decisions that weakened Venezuela’s ability to protect the company.
Cabello and other government figures have repeatedly blamed opposition-controlled structures abroad for putting CITGO at risk. Opposition representatives, however, argue that many of the debts and legal claims threatening the company originated from decisions, borrowing and expropriations carried out during years of Chavista rule.
Figuera's latest response brings that dispute back to the center of Venezuela's political debate.
Beyond the political accusations, determining responsibility for CITGO's deterioration requires examining the chronology of Venezuela's debts, PDVSA's financial decisions, arbitration awards, sanctions, the management of the company and decisions subsequently taken by the different bodies claiming authority over Venezuelan assets abroad.
The controversy therefore extends well beyond the latest confrontation between Figuera and Cabello.
At its core is a question that Venezuela has still not fully resolved: how one of its most strategically important foreign assets became exposed to billions of dollars in creditor claims — and which political and institutional decisions were ultimately responsible.