Venezuela government wants to use funds frozen in the U.S. to pay for vaccines

• Venezuela’s government wants funds frozen in the United States to be put toward paying for coronavirus vaccines and will keep working with the opposition to negotiate this payment, the head of the government-controlled legislature said on Tuesday.
• Allies of opposition leader Juan Guaido have for months been in talks with state officials to buy vaccines through the COVAX program using funds frozen by the U.S. Treasury as part of sanctions against the government of President Nicolas Maduro.
• Maduro over the weekend said his government had paid some $64 million to the GAVI Vaccine Alliance, spurring doubts as to whether the government would pull the plug on talks to use the frozen funds for the inoculation campaign.
• In 2019, Washington froze $342 million held by the Venezuelan central bank in the United States, as part of a sanctions program that sought to remove Maduro from power. The funds were put under the control of opposition leader Guaido and the interim government he created, but moving them requires a license from the U.S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
• The ability to access the funds would provide the country with the resources to secure a sufficient amount of vaccines for its citizens, which will help to support economic recovery prospects and governments’ fiscal performance.

(Source: Reuters & NCBCM Research)