The Venezuelan Ministry of Communications & Information (Spanish: Ministerio del Poder Popular para la Comunicación y la Información, Minci) is a ministry in the government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.[1] The present minister, since December 2010, is Andrés Izarra,[2] who simultaneously and since 2005 is president of TeleSur, a 24-hour Spanish-language news channel that covers the Americas.
In an interview with El Universal in 2008, then-Minister Izarra described the most important achievements of the ministry since 1999 as having stopped the process of "enclosure" of the communications capability of the state, having recovered communications capability from the state, and success in launching a network of alternative community media[3] in both television in Venezuela and radio. He highlighted the previous situation in which communications were "the private preserve of three or four families", and said that although 80% of the spectrum remained in private hands, the public sector had recovered a large part of the audience.[4] He described the challenge of constructing a system of public television and radio with the public's participation,[5] and of widening the circle of government presentation of its message beyond Hugo Chávez.[6]
| Period | Minister |
|---|---|
| December 2010 - | Andrés Izarra[2] |
| July - December 2010 | Mauricio Rodríguez[2] |
| ? - July 2010 | Tania Díaz[2] |
| 2008 - 2009 | Jesse Chacón |
| Jan 2008 - July 2008 | Andrés Izarra[2] |
| 9 August 2006 - January 2008 | Willian Lara |
| 9 March 2005 - August 2006 | Yuri Pimentel |
| September 2004 - March 2005 | Andrés Izarra[2] |
| ? - 2004 | Jesse Chacón, Nora Uribe[2] |