Maduro Appoints Head Of Gas, Oil Company PDVSA As New Venezuelan Oil Minister

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 22nd March, 2023) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday that he appointed Pedro Tellechea, head of state oil and gas corporation Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), as the country's new oil minister after the resignation of Tellechea's predecessor amid a corruption investigation.

"I met with the President of PDVSA, engineer Pedro Tellechea, and appointed him as the new minister of petroleum as part of the transformation process that this industry is going through," Maduro said on Twitter.

On Monday, former Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami announced his resignation from the ministerial position amid the ongoing high-profile investigation into alleged corruption in PDVSA. Maduro said that he personally participated in the investigations to "dismantle criminal networks" in the economic, political, and judicial structures of Venezuela.

The president promised to carry out "a deep cleaning and restructuring at the highest level," including in PDVSA.

At the same time, the Venezuelan prosecutor's office opened a criminal case against several high-ranking officials, who had been detained over the past few days over corruption suspicions. Venezuelan media reported that former education minister and lawmaker Hugbel Roa, several senior judges, a mayor from the state of Aragua, as well as the head of the national crypto asset authority SUNACRIP, Joselit Ramirez, had been arrested in the course of the investigation.