- ELECTRICIDAD
Delcy Rodríguez promises, before year-end, the law opening power generation, transmission and distribution to private companies.
Plazo anunciado: 2026 · proyecto de 42 artículos en primera discusión desde junio · mixtas con más del 50% de la República
affects oil companies required to self-generate and anyone weighing an investment in the grid
- RIESGO
New York adds a torture-conspiracy count against Maduro and Cilia Flores, and the judge denies Flores bail.
5 cargos · hechos de 1999 a 2025 · 3 víctimas estadounidenses · inmunidad: audiencia el 17-nov
affects compliance teams vetting counterparties in Venezuela
- SALARIOS
The acting president orders that from 2027 pay increases outpace GDP growth.
Remuneración 2026: +32,8% privado, +50% público · salario mínimo: Bs 130 · mesas laborales: noviembre
affects companies with large payrolls and long-tenured staff
The government brought Fedecámaras an invitation and an invoice, and only the invitation is on paper. The power reform exists as a bill approved on first reading; it lacks one verifiable act, the second reading in the National Assembly, and the acting president has put a date on it. The invoice is the payroll: raises above economic growth from 2027, with no formula and no word on whether they go to salary or to bonuses. The tax reform, which would touch that same payroll, has no text either. The wage rule cannot go into a 2027 budget until the government gives the formula, which it promised for November. The New York indictment is a separate story on its own clock: the immunity hearing on November 17.
The acting president told Fedecámaras on Thursday the 8th that the power reform allowing private participation will pass before year-end. The bill has been waiting for its second reading since June.
Delcy Rodríguez said on Thursday the 8th, opening in Caracas the 82nd annual assembly of Fedecámaras, the country's largest business federation, that the reform of the power-system law allowing private participation in generation, transmission and distribution will come "in the coming days, weeks" and will not go past this year. The National Assembly approved that 42-article bill unanimously on first reading on June 2 and then put it to public consultation. The second reading, which turns it into law, has no date.
Presidencia de Venezuela — vía AVN ↗Proyecto: 42 artículos (31 reformados, 11 nuevos) · 1.ª discusión: 2-jun, unanimidad · 2.ª discusión: sin fecha · mixtas: más del 50% de la República · plazo anunciado: 2026Today the grid is run by Corpoelec, the state power company. According to its sponsor, the bill allows private concessions and joint ventures in which the Republic keeps more than 50% of the capital, with tariffs that cover real costs and yield a "reasonable return". Distributors would be required to compensate users for blackouts. Oil companies already have to generate or contract their own power under the hydrocarbons regulation: Chevron has its own generation and Repsol is preparing its own, according to the Zulia chapter of the Venezuelan Oil Chamber.
Oil companies already required to self-generate, such as Chevron and Repsol, and anyone wanting to invest in generation or distribution: they would have a legal framework of their own and cost-based tariffs.
Corpoelec, which would stop being the grid's sole operator and would be required, like any distributor, to compensate users for blackouts.
INDICADORThe reform's second reading in the National Assembly and its publication in the Official Gazette, with the concession and tariff rules. · Antes del 31 de diciembre de 2026, el plazo que dio la presidenta encargada.
New York prosecutors unsealed an indictment on Thursday the 8th adding a torture-conspiracy count against Maduro and Cilia Flores. The same day, the judge denied Flores bail.
The Southern District of New York unsealed on Thursday the 8th the fifth superseding indictment against Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, which the grand jury had returned on October 6. It adds a count of conspiracy to commit torture for acts from 1999 to 2025, among them those against three US citizens detained in 2022, 2023 and 2025, and adds narcoterrorism for Flores. The same day, Judge Alvin Hellerstein denied Flores pretrial release.
Departamento de Justicia ↗5 cargos; nuevo: conspiración para torturar, máx. 20 años · hechos de 1999 a 2025 · 3 víctimas estadounidenses · 3 coconspiradores sin nombre · fianza de Flores: negada · inmunidad: 17-novThe account does not stop at the capture: the indictment places an unnamed official, identified as CC-3, threatening Americans at the airport as they were released on January 15, 2026, twelve days after Maduro's capture. In denying bail, the judge wrote that he doubts Venezuela would extradite Flores "in due time" if she fled, and took the new torture allegations as evidence of dangerousness.
The prosecution: Flores stays detained until trial, set for June 1, 2027, and the new count does not depend on proving drug trafficking.
Maduro's and Flores' defense: with the two new counts, Flores faces a minimum of 50 years in prison if convicted on all of them, according to the judge.
INDICADORThe arraignment on the new indictment and the head-of-state immunity hearing before Judge Hellerstein. · 17 de noviembre de 2026, 10:30 ET (inmunidad); la lectura de cargos, sin fecha publicada al 8 de octubre.
On Thursday the 8th the acting president instructed her economic team that, from 2027, every pay increase must outpace GDP growth. She also announced a tax reform, still without a text.
Speaking at the same assembly, Delcy Rodríguez said she had asked her economic team that "from next year all growth in workers' pay" be above GDP growth. She said pay rose 32.8% this year in the private sector and 50% in the public sector, without specifying the currency. She also announced a tax reform to "harmonize the tax burden", which would reorganize labor responsibilities between the public and private sectors. The labor consensus talks would deliver results in November.
Presidencia de Venezuela — vía AVN ↗Aumentos por encima del PIB desde 2027 · remuneración 2026: +32,8% privado, +50% público, sin moneda declarada · salario mínimo: Bs 130 desde mar-2022 · mesas de consenso: noviembreThe instruction comes with no formula and does not say whether the raise will go to salary or to bonuses, and for companies that is the difference. The labor law computes severance with the last salary for each year of service: a raise that enters as salary recalculates the liability for the worker's whole tenure; one paid as a bonus does not. The minimum wage has stayed at 130 bolívars, about 15 US cents, since March 2022.
Formal-sector workers, public and private, if the instruction becomes a rule: their raises would have economic growth as a floor.
Companies with large payrolls and long-tenured staff, if the raise arrives as salary: every point recalculates years of severance.
INDICADORThe results of the labor consensus talks: the raise formula and whether it is paid as salary or as a bonus. · Noviembre de 2026, según la presidenta encargada.
Domains blocked by at least one of the internet providers VE sin Filtro measures, among them CANTV, Movistar and Digitel: 143 domains belonging to 102 sites and platforms.
Of the 200 domains blocked in early September, 45 became reachable on every provider measured after two waves of unblocking, on September 16 and 25. On the 16th, Conatel announced the "formal restoration of access" to platforms and media "in compliance with the instructions" of the acting president. Those still blocked include 23 commerce domains and 7 economics domains. For a company that sells or publishes online, reaching readers depends on the provider and on an administrative instruction. The reform of the Law against Hatred, whose article 22 allows websites to be blocked, will show whether that power remains.
The government gave its figures in Caracas, and next week the IMF publishes its own. At Fedecámaras, the acting president spoke of projected growth above 6.5% in the third quarter and said Venezuela will receive $12 billion in public and private financing over two years, with the IMF, the World Bank and the IDB among her interlocutors. Those same institutions take the floor at the Bangkok annual meetings. In Caracas, the week takes wage demands to Miraflores and the Supreme Court timetable to the National Assembly.
- →Martes 13 de octubre, 9:00 en Bangkok (lunes 12, 22:00 ET) — The IMF publishes its World Economic Outlook at the Bangkok annual meetings — it will show what growth the Fund projects for Venezuela in 2026 and whether, as reported, it uses official Venezuelan figures
- →Martes 13 de octubre — March by more than 26 health-sector unions to Miraflores to demand higher wages — they want raises now, while the rule announced on Thursday the 8th would apply from 2027
- →Miércoles 14 de octubre — The deadline set by House Democrats for Rubio and Hegseth to hand over the text of the NABEP deal expires — on October 2 the State Department handed over a single document on the deal
- →Jueves 15 de octubre — The preliminary commission presents to the plenary the 12 civil-society candidates for the judicial nominations committee — that list opens the stage that ends with the renewal of the Supreme Court
- →Viernes 16 de octubre — The deadline for Maduro's and Flores' defense to reply to the prosecution on head-of-state immunity expires — it is their last filing before the November 17 hearing and the first after the torture indictment
HOW OUR CALLS ARE DOING
indicators we issued in earlier editionsOn October 7 we set a watch on the restart date of the Cardón refinery, shut by a fire, and on the causes PDVSA's investigation committee determines, with a first check on October 9.
On Wednesday the 7th it was reported, citing two workers, that Cardón's crude distillation units were starting up. PDVSA has not confirmed it: its Tuesday the 6th statement speaks of assessing "the conditions for its safe restart", and the investigation committee has not published the causes.