Cuba asks Venezuela for USD 339 million under bilateral agreement

Cuba asks Venezuela for USD 339 million under bilateral agreement

Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba under the Integral Cooperation
Agreement are to amount to USD 2.21 billion, with 101,000 bpd, according
to reports disclosed Monday by Humberto Calderón Berti and Alfredo Toro
Hardy, former directors of Venezuelan state oil giant Pdvsa.

The experts claimed that not only the amount of shipments -set at 92,000
bpd under the 2004 agreement- has been infringed, but also Cuba demanded
Venezuela two additional payments of USD 212 million and 127 million for
the services the island has provided to Venezuela and the equipment
Venezuela has imported.

From the first amount -collected on June 1st by the Cuban Minister of
Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation Marta Lomas Morales- USD 19
million were earmarked to afford operational expenses of Cubana de
Aviación in Venezuela. This year, Puerto La Cruz refinery ordered
construction of two tugboats at a Cuban shipyard at a cost of USD 12.7
million that was not collected from the Venezuelan oil bill.

"How come that the short-term debt Cuba owes to Venezuela -which amounts
to some USD 1.65 billion a year- is not enough to afford 20,000 Cuban
doctors who earn USD 1,000 a month, and USD 240 million a year? Where is
the rest of the money then?" wondered Calderón Berti.

In his view, the Integral Cooperation Agreement with Cuba is a way "to
transfer money to Cuba."

In fact, Toro Hardy stressed that in the original agreement, Cuban
healthcare services were expressly defined as free from cost, but in the
second instrument both countries initialed, Cuban doctors were supposed
to be paid on the Venezuelan oil bill.

http://english.eluniversal.com/2006/11/21/en_eco_art_21A805987.shtml