On Wednesday, legislators the Comptroller’s Commission of the National Assembly of Venezuela released findings of alleged acts of corruption of the Nicolás Maduro regime, including the alleged looting of the Venezuelan public capital company Aluminios Nacionales SA (ALUNASA).
This company is located in Esparza de Puntarenas, and employs about 267 people, mostly Costa Ricans.
According to the Venezuelan legislator Julio Montoya, an opponent of the Maduro regime, now the government wants to “finish off” ALUNASA after having sacked it.
“The Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana has a company in Costa Rica called ALUNASA. Venezuelans are about to lose a company that is worth more than $100 million dollars about to be auctioned for $8 million,” said the legislator.
According to Montoya, the auction of ALUNASA is an intentional operation led by the division general, Noel Rafael Martínez Rivero.
Montoya accused the military man akin to the Maduro regime, who presides over ALUNASA, of doing nothing to recover the flagging production of the firm and rescue it from serious production problems that have led to multiple lawsuits in Costa Rican courts.
The opposition congressman asked that the Comptroller’s Commission of the Venezuelan Parliament open an investigation against the regime of Nicolas Maduro for the alleged sacking of ALUNASA.
The Comptroller’s Commission, according to the Venezuelan media Notiespartano, asked the president in charge of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, for precautionary measures to protect the company.
Moreover, 2018 was a bad year for Alunasa. In April, the Costa Rican Ministry of Labor warned that the company was transferring of its property in Esparza to a trust.
The authorities presumed that this could have been an attempt to evade the responsibilities of the company with its employees in case of bankruptcy. The Ministry even urged employees to request an immediate seizure of property and other assets.
As of April last year, ALUNASA owed almost $ 1 million in employer contributions to the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS). Later that year, ALUNASA asked the Ministry to suspend the employment contracts of its employees, because, according to the managers of the company, they had to stop the production of aluminum products because they stopped receiving raw material from Venezuela.
CRHoy.com contacted Ambassador María Faría, appointed by President Guaidó in Costa Rica. According to the diplomat, her office cannot issue any statement regarding ALUNASA until the National Assembly does not conduct an investigation.