Colombian fertilizers firm dogged by scandal next door

Venezuela's US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido and his domestic allies are scrambling to shake off corruption allegations partly related to Colombia-based fertilizers company Monomeros Colombo-Venezolanos.

Guaido, the opposition-controlled National Assembly speaker whom the US, Colombia and dozens of other Western countries recognize as Venezuela's interim president, denies accusations from within senior opposition ranks of political patronage at Monomeros.

Humberto Calderon Berti, Venezuela's former oil minister who served as Guaido's diplomatic envoy to Colombia until he was fired last week, accused Guaido of allowing the political parties that support him to infiltrate Monomeros with board appointments and commercial deals.

Calderon said this and other alleged corruption swirling around opposition politicians are under investigation by the Colombian attorney general's office. Colombian authorities have not responded to a request for comment.

Monomeros, the Colombian subsidiary of Venezuelan state-owned petrochemicals company Pequiven, is one of Venezuela's foreign assets that the Guaido team has taken over as part of its 11-month campaign to unseat President Nicolas Maduro. The main asset now in the opposition's hands is Venezuelan state-owned PdV's US refining subsidiary Citgo, which has not been implicated in the alleged wrongdoing.

Barranquilla-based Monomeros, which used to control about 40pc of Colombia's fertilizers market, has been led by seasoned Venezuelan petrochemicals executive Jorge Yanez since August, when he replaced Jon Bilbao who was named in March.

The Monomeros board of directors "is comprised of qualified, proven professionals who have no party affiliations, are experts in their area who, working to rescue this company from the usurpation's destruction and corruption, have recovered production in record time," Guaido said on 29 November.

But numerous critics, including oil union leader Ivan Freites who resigned last week from Guaido's Voluntad Popular party (VP), question the validity of the Monomeros assessment and blame him for neglecting to investigate corruption.

A Monomeros spokesperson could not be reached for comment. The Monomeros scandal is one of several corruption allegations now dogging Guaido and his mentor Leopoldo Lopez, the VP founder who has been holed up in the Spanish diplomatic residence in Caracas since a botched 30 April military uprising that the opposition had hoped would oust Maduro.

In high-profile media interviews since his 27 November firing, Calderon also accused the Guaido team of failing to investigate alleged malfeasance of funds raised during a 23 February humanitarian concert in the Colombian border city of Cucuta, as well as an influence-peddling scandal tied to Maduro's subsidized food program known as CLAP.

Nine opposition deputies in the National Assembly who were implicated in the scandals have been suspended pending an investigation, Guaido said on 30 November.

The three controversies compound doubt over Guaido's staying power as leader of the mainstream opposition ahead of National Assembly elections on 5 January 2020. Guaido's call for nationwide marches on 16 November brought out modest crowds, and many Venezuelans inside and outside the country had begun to question his effectiveness even before the corruption allegations surfaced last week. Should Guaido be voted out, he would lose his constitutional claim to the interim presidency.

But opposition officials insist that opposition support for Guaido remains intact, partly because there is no one else who is ready or willing to step into the role.