Keeping funds from government has negative consequences for spending  Let us not forget that in most of the cases when we talk about oil revenues, we are talking about very large sums of money, which can have an immense impact on the budget.  In countries where oil already contributes to the budget any change could be immensely disruptive to the government’s ability to deliver services. If we take Venezuela as an example oil revenues account for 25% of GDP (1), with government expenditure of 50% of GDP (2) any drop in oil revenues would have an immense impact upon social policies such as education, health and welfare. For those where the funding would be new that country would be foregoing a potentially transformative sum of money that could help to eliminate poverty or provide universal healthcare and education.  Such a drop in funds flowing into the government would also have a huge impact on politics; politicians would block the implementation of a proposal that takes away so much revenue. If it did happen the independent fund would simply get criticism heaped on it as an excuse for why services can’t be improved.  (1) Annual Statistical Bulletin 2013, ‘Venezuela facts and figures’, OPEC, 2013,   (2) 2013 Index of Economic Freedom, ‘Venezuela’, Heritage Foundation, 2013,