Giant Chávez: At the end of the 80s, the government subordinated itself to the oligarchy and indebted the country

“The debt went up, I think, I don't remember exactly the figure, from 9 thousand to 16 thousand (millions of dollars), that's where the figure is more or less. Why? Ah! because the Government took on the debt of the private individuals, and who were the private ones, the oligarchs here. Those oligarchs never paid that debt, because the agreement said that the Government assumed the debt to the outside world, and the Government, began to pay the debt in dollars, and that then Venezuelan companies and oligarchs would pay the Government in bolivars, because they never paid it in bolivars, but the Government did pay in dollars, money that must have been invested in schools, in hospitals, in housing, in some weapons, in the Armed Forces well; but above all social spending, the social investment and a people that were wiped out and looted living on a sea of oil and wealth of all kinds,” Chávez said on October 3, 2007 from Fort Tiuna.