[NYTr] Chavez Aid Helps 250,000 Low-Income Londoners

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

excerpted from VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup -August 21, 2007.


[The Guardian reports today that aid from Venezuela will allow the city
of London to offer reduced-rate bus fares to welfare recipients.  The
arrangement is expected to benefit up to 250,000 Londoners, including
single parents and others with qualifying financial need, as well as
handicapped and otherwise infirm people, according to the Financial
Times.  In return for a 20% reduction in the cost of oil from Venezuela
to supply the buses, London city officials will provide urban planning
expertise in Caracas.  The deal amounts to $32 million in aid and was
arranged last year by the Venezuelan-owned oil company PDVSA and London
mayor Ken Livingstone, and is a response to a recent rise in London bus
fares. -VIO]

The Guardian - August 21, 2007
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/gla/story/0,,2153144,00.html


Chavez to Aid Low-Income Londoners

By Lee Glendinning

Up to a million people on income support will be eligible for half
fares on London's buses under Ken Livingstone's oil deal with Hugo
Chávez, Venezuela's president.

Single parents, carers, the long-term sick and disabled people will
benefit from the plan, first mooted during Mr Chávez's visit to the UK
last year, paying 50p for a single journey if they use an Oystercard.

In exchange for a 20% oil discount to fuel London buses, an office will
be set up in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, where London officials will
offer expertise in town planning, tourism, public transport and
environmental protection.

Under the scheme applicants must take proof of their income support
status to a post office to get a special photocard for a discounted
Oystercard.

Mr Livingstone, London's mayor, said London and Venezuela had exchanged
"those things in which they are rich to the mutual benefit of both".

"This will make it cheaper and easier for people to go about their
lives and get the most out of London," he said. "The agreement which
makes this possible will also benefit the people of Venezuela, by
providing expertise in areas of city management in which London is a
world leader."

Angie Bray, the Conservative leader in the London assembly, said Mr
Livingstone should rather have appealed to the Treasury if he needed
financial support. "The spectacle of our mayor ... going cap in hand to
a dictator ... is morally indefensible," she added.

>From September 30, a 10% a fare cut will also be introduced, meaning a
single bus journey will be reduced to 45p for those on income support.

                               ***

Financial Times - August 20, 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/479d0a60-4f38-11dc-b485-0000779fd2ac.html

Chávez oil dollars buy bus tickets for London

By Tom Burgis and Dino Mahtani

Hugo Chávez, Venezuela?s president, broke new ground in his campaign of
global oil diplomacy on Monday when London mayor Ken Livingstone
announced half-price bus travel for poor Londoners, funded with
millions of Venezuelan oil dollars.

An initial one-year deal will see Petróleos de Venezuela Europa, the
European arm of state oil company PdVSA, spend up to $32m (?23.75m,
£16m) to subsidise bus fares for residents in the UK capital who
receive low-income welfare payments.

Up to 250,000 Londoners ? including lone parents and sick and disabled
people, but excluding most other unemployed ? stand to benefit under a
plan first conceived during the Venezuelan socialist president?s visit
to the UK last year, when he dazzled the British left but eschewed
meeting Tony Blair, then prime minister.

In return, London is establishing an office in Caracas, Venezuela?s
capital, that will school officials there in techniques of traffic
management and urban planning.

The deal follows a rush of recent pledges by Venezuela, home to the
world?s fifth-largest proven oil reserves, to assist countries
throughout Latin America and even as far afield as Belarus by financing
energy projects and offering cheap credit.

Mr Livingstone on Monday denied he had been seduced by Mr Chávez?s
petro- iplomacy. ?When someone turns up and says: ?Do you want £14m??
they get my attention,? Mr Livingstone told the Financial Times.

But he told reporters: ?Frankly I?d rather be getting into bed with [Mr
Chávez] than, as the British government has been, getting into bed with
[US president] George W. Bush.?

The agreement has drawn the ire of Mr Livingstone?s critics, who ask
why London, one of the world?s richest cities and a booming financial
hub, is effectively accepting handouts from a developing nation whose
gross domestic product per head is estimated at less than a quarter of
Britain?s. The mayor?s officials confirmed the cost of London?s side of
the deal would be ?minuscule? compared with Venezuela?s largesse.

The subsidy amounts to a maximum of only $32m, a fraction of
Venezuela?s overall oil revenues, and marks another public relations
coup for Mr Chávez, following recent deals to supply 100,000 deprived
US households with heating oil at a 40 per cent discount and gasoline
to help Iran to alleviate its shortages.

?If you have an excellent ruler, you get publicity,? Temir Porras,
chief of staff to the Venezuelan foreign ministry, said on Monday in
reference to Mr Chávez, adding the pact sealed a bond between
two ?sister cities?.

He said the surge in his country?s oil revenues ? which account for
about a third of its $190bn gross domestic product ? made the deal
a ?win-win? arrangement. He placed it alongside what he said was a 360
per cent rise in domestic social expenditure per head since Mr
Chávez?s ?Bolivarian revolution? began with his 1998 election victory.
Now, Mr Porras said, ?our co-operation must help the poorest people,
wherever they are?.

Mr Chávez has escalated spending abroad in recent years, according to
Venezuelan opposition groups, who say the cash would be better spent at
home, particularly on curbing high crime rates. Opponents claim the
spending is burdening PdVSA with heavy costs.