Venezuela has gained a bad fame over the last decades; corruption, drug trafficking, alarming crime rates, censorship, dictatorship. So much to talk about, but famine is the most characteristic problem of them all. Maybe because it’s incredibly absurd.
If you don’t know anything about Venezuela, let me fill you in: it’s a country, right next to Brazil and Colombia, in South America. No, we are not small. No, we don’t lack resources. We have the biggest proven petroleum reserve, uranium, coltan, great potential for agriculture, great potential for tourism. Long story short, we could develop an economy in any field we want. We used to be, not too long ago, one of the best economies in Latin America and an established democracy. We had a promising future, until socialism arrived, 17 years ago.
How we got here? An extended analysis:
Massive arbitrary expropriations occurred and immediately after the now-public enterprises turned completely inactive. When an enterprise was not expropriated, they would still have to face regulations and controlled exchange of currency, this meant, that when they needed dollars to buy prime matter or machinery, they often were not permitted to exchange the amount they needed or anything at all. These two factors alone killed the national production and imports and caused constant devaluation and the highest inflation of the world (now, over 700%). As if it’s not enough, even if an enterprise was successful enough to be able to buy dollars from the black market (for a very expensive price) to get their business going, they could be forced by the government to sell it for a lower price than what it cost producing them, this is excused by the government with “The Organic Law of Fair Prices” sustained by the insane premise of the supposed intentional harm orchestrated by the private sector and the United States, also named by them as “Economic War“. Consequently, many enterprises had to close, which is why today the responsibility to provide food for the whole Venezuelan population (30 million) practically lies on solely ONE big private company named “Empresas Polar”, which can hardly manage the task, for obvious reasons. Note: The government “regulates” prices for services too, for example, Medical ones. Even if the government didn’t regulate them, they couldn’t charge what it truly should be, simply because very few could afford it. Note that charging in dollars it’s illegal in Venezuela, you can only charge in Bolívares.
This is where the scarcity kicks in. Kilometric lines to buy food are formed. The humiliation that Venezuelans have to go through to get their groceries is unbelievable. “4 per person”. “You can’t buy this product again until 2 weeks from now”. “Today is not your turn to buy”. Some of the systems that have been used to keep control of who buys what and when, are fingerprint scanners, marked numbers in arms (non-permanent) and the final number that pertains to your citizen ID (The day you get to buy certain products, will depend on what number your ID ends in). It’s important to say, all of this does not only apply to food, also to basic need products like toilet paper, medicines, toothpaste, soap, etc.
The shortage of food, however, is not the only problem. But also how much Venezuelans are making. The minimum wage, recently raised, that will be on practice on November 1 of the current year, is Bs. 177.507,43 + Cestaticket Bs. 279.000 (Cestaticket can only be spent on food). This, converted to the dollar prices of the black market (which is, in practice, the only way to get them and in the amount you need since mostly only government officials get the privilege to the much lower government-established exchange rate), is $11,05 PER MONTH and only $4,29 of it can be used in expenses different than food. Consider that the prices in here in normal conditions are the same than the prices in the rest of the world, so no, it’s not that you can get dinner with a cent, it’s that millions of Venezuelans have had to figure out and will continue to figure out how to live with about $7,91 (previous minimum wage, raised on September 1 of 2017) for a whole month. The price of the dollar raises every day, which is why in no much time, this updated minimum wage ($11,05) will be less that $10 again. Venezuelans keep track of it with an app called “Dollar Today”.
This deeply reflects the population. Here are some quick facts that wrap up how bad the situation is:
- 81,8% of the population lives in poverty.
- Around 6 million of Venezuelans eat out of the garbage.
- Venezuelans have reduced the consumption of goods like meat and milk and have turned to goods like potatoes and yuccas.
- 32% of the population eat 2 or fewer meals a day
- According to the Venezuelan Observatory of Health, Venezuelans have lost an average of 17,6 pounds during 2016, this weight loss hasn’t stopped and will continue to grow.
- ENCOVI 2016 (Venezuelan Life Conditions Survey) states that because they have nothing to eat, 4% of kids ages 3-17 miss school frequently and 20% miss school sometimes.
- A recent report emitted by Caritas Organization assured that malnutrition has raised from 54% (April 2017) to 68% (August 2017) and 6 babies die weekly because of malnutrition.
- 11.4% of kids under five suffer from malnutrition
- 63% of Venezuelans don’t have health insurance
- Venezuela’s healthcare system has collapsed. Hospitals have run out of medicines, healthcare provision, and mosquito-borne diseases including zika, dengue, malaria and chikungunya, are on the rise.
In the meantime, Venezuela seems to be a dead-end. After a proven fraudulent regional election (the percentages don’t even add up 100%) that were not going to get us anywhere anyway, now out of 23 states + capital district, only 5 are under control of opposition governors out of which 4 betrayed the Nation submitting them to the strongly protested illegal new constitution. The only governor that stayed loyal to the people’s wishes, Juan Pablo Guanipa of Zulia, will now be dismissed by the Government. All politicians are doing is “considering” whether to participate in municipal elections or not although already 2 fraudulent elections took place only in 2017. With a brainwashed military, a bought political “opposition”, no more international attention and an even more oppressed population, there seems to be no hope at all.
