The Hugo Chavez official on the board of Bizta, the company developing Smartmatic Automatic Elections Systems (SAES) electronic voting systems software on Venezuelan government contract, won’t talk to Miami Herald investigative reporters.
The official is Omar Montilla.
“In June 2003 … a venture capital company called Sociedad de Capital de Riesgo (SCR) invested about $200,000 in Bizta. The SCR is owned by the Venezuelan government’s Industrial Credit Fund,” the Herald reports.
“In January [2004], a top official in Venezuela’s science ministry, Omar Montilla, joined Bizta’s board of directors to represent the government’s three million shares, records show,” according to the report.
The Venezuelan government is the largest shareholder in Bitza.
“Montilla, who is one of five directors, canceled a meeting with The Herald and did not reply to repeated Herald queries,” report Richard Brand and Alfonso Chardy.
The Herald describes how the Venezuela’s Chavez-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) issued the contract to Bizta and Smartmatic.
“One month after Montilla joined the board, the National Electoral Council awarded Bizta and partners Smartmatic and CANTV the $91 million contract to develop new voting machines. Bizta was hired to write the electronic code that configured the names and parties of candidates on the touch screens. Smartmatic would build and design the machines. CANTV, the publicly held phone company, would provide the phone lines for the system and election-day technical support,” according to the Herald.
“The venture is largely the work of two little-known Venezuelan engineers: Antonio Mugica Rivero and Alfredo Anzola Jaumotte, childhood friends and recent engineering school graduates,” the article says.
Antonio Mugica and Alfredo Anzola are co-founders of both Bizta and Smartmatic. Mugica is president of Smartmatic, according to the article, which reports that Anzola is president of Bizta and a vice president of Smartmatic.
Chavez regime money was a ‘loan,’ not an ‘investment,’ Bizta says
Anzola, now deceased, and Mugica tell the Herald that they have no political allegiances.
“When told in a subsequent interview in Caracas that Bizta papers showed the government had an investment in his company through SCR, Anzola and Mugica said they viewed the investment as a loan,” according to the article.
“‘We really don’t want to be involved in politics,’ said Wladimir Serrano, head of the governments venture capital fund. ‘Our role is strictly financial and technical.’
“Bizta ‘remains a private company, with some government shares but without any say on our part on its day to day activities or its strategic programs and policies,’ Serrano said.”
Source:
Package from Rep. Carolyn Maloney to Treasury Secretary John H. Snow, May 4, 2006,
1. https://urru.org/Letter-Sec-Dep-Treasury-CarolynMaloney
2. https://adrianavigilanza.wordpress.com/anexos-al-recurso-contencioso-electoral-2018. PAGE (20-30)
1. Why did the Venezuelan government’s representative on the Bizta board refuse to answer the Herald‘s questions?
2. Was Omar Montilla’s mission in joining Bizta’s board of directors to influence and secure the $91 million contract for Bizta and its Smartmatic partner to develop Venezuela’s voting system?
3. Why did the board of directors of Bizta give up the position held by Antonio Mugica’s father so that Omar Montilla, representative of the government, could take control of the board as the company developed SAES (Smartmatic Automatic Elections Systems) voting software?
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