Despite
Riches, Venezuela Starts Food Rationing
By Sara Schaefer Muñoz
in the Wall Street Journal
MARACAIBO,
Venezuela—Amid worsening shortages, Venezuela recently reached a milestone of
dubious distinction: It has joined the ranks of North Korea and Cuba in
rationing food for its citizens.
On
a recent, muggy morning, Maria Varge stood in line outside a Centro 99 grocery
store, ready to scour the shelves for scarce items like cooking oil and milk.
But before entering, Ms. Varge had to scan her fingerprint to ensure she
wouldn’t buy more than her share.
Despite
its technological twist on the old allotment booklet, Venezuela’s new program
of rationing is infuriating consumers who say it creates tiresome waits,
doesn’t relieve shortages and overlooks the far-reaching economic overhauls the
country needs to resolve the problem.
“These
machines make longer lines,” said Ms. Varge, 50, as she was jostled by people
in line, “but you get inside, and they still don’t have what you want.”
The
government rolled out the system last month across 36 supermarkets in this
western border state, Zulia, whose capital is Maracaibo, with a recent expansion
into a select number of state-owned markets in Caracas.
Venezuela
is turning to rationing because of shortages caused by what economists call a
toxic mix of unproductive local industry—hamstrung by nationalizations and
government intervention—and a complex currency regime that is unable to provide
the dollars importers need to pay for basics.
The
tumbling price for Venezuela’s oil, which has fallen by nearly $15 a barrel
since September to $77.65 on Friday, is likely to mean even more scarcity in the
cash-strapped country, economists say.
Already,
only 30% of the normal level of basic, price-controlled goods were available in
a select group of Caracas supermarkets, said a recent survey by Venezuelan
polling firm Datanalisis.
“The
government is the one that lets the problems flourish,” said Eliseo Fermín, an
opposition member of Zulia’s state congress. “Now the average citizen bears the
brunt.”
Under
the system in place here, basic price-controlled items—including milk, rice,
coffee, toothpaste, chicken and detergent—are rationed, with the fingerprinting
machine used to ensure that a shopper doesn’t return over and over to stock up.
It means that consumers are limited to buying up to 2.2 pounds of powdered
milk—called “gold” here for its rarity—a week.
Venezuelan
officials blame the shortages on smugglers who they say buy price-controlled
products here and sell them for a handsome profit in neighboring Colombia.
Though
economists estimate that about 10% of Venezuelan consumer merchandise winds up
in Colombia, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has said that the figure is
40%. He has closed checkpoints along the whole 1,375-mile border at night to
stem the flow, and a crackdown on smugglers has led to the arrests of shoppers
that officials believe to be planning to sell what they purchase in Colombia,
say border guards.
“It
is the responsibility of everyone to unite against contraband,” Zulia Gov.
Francisco Arias, a member of Mr. Maduro’s Socialist Party, said on a recent TV
show. He and other officials say fingerprinting prevents bulk buying for resale
more effectively than requiring shoppers to show their national identity cards,
a method that is used to track and limit purchases in some Caracas stores.
Many
economists say jettisoning currency and price controls, as well as loosening
restrictions on local producers, would alleviate shortages.
Here
at Maracaibo’s supermarkets, hot and cranky consumers who were waiting in line
recently pointed to the irony of Venezuela, a country with $114 billion in oil
sales last year, having to ration toilet paper.
“It
sort of makes me want to laugh, but I can’t,” said Nayibi Pineda, a hotel
housekeeper. “How is it possible we’ve gotten to this extreme?”
Shoppers
said the time waiting in line can stretch to more than five hours, a delay they
chalk up to malfunctioning fingerprinting machines.
“I’ve
spent hours standing in line, suffering in the sun,” shrieked a tearful
Luzmarina Vargas, clad in a bright pink robe typical of the area’s Wayuu
Indians.
Salvador
González, the Zulia state finance director who oversees machines, said
officials were requiring machines to be installed at each checkout point in
order to shorten lines. Supermarkets must bear the cost of the machines, around
$150 each.“Our objective is to guarantee cheap food,” he said in an interview.
It
isn’t just food that’s rationed here. Officials shut off water to homes for up
to 108 hours a week, say residents, because of problems with the water delivery
system.
In
the birthplace of Venezuela’s oil industry—the first well was drilled here in
1914—the sale of gasoline is also tightly controlled. Scanners read bar codes
that are required on car windshields to limit drivers from filling up their
sedans more than twice a week. The measure is designed to curb the sale of
Venezuela’s heavily subsidized gasoline—which costs less than a penny per
gallon—in neighboring Colombia, where a gallon goes for $4.50.
“This
country is falling apart,” said one driver, Darwin Padilla, as he mopped his
face with his shirt while waiting in a line of idling cars for more than an
hour to fill up. “And as you can see, I can’t get parts to replace my car’s air
conditioning, either.”
But
the fingerprinting machines—and the shortages of basics—are irritating
consumers, who also must contend with rationed water and gasoline.
“If
I can’t find disposable diapers I use cloth ones,” said Rosa Fernandez, mother
of an infant, who noted that to buy diapers she has to show the checkout clerk
her child’s birth certificate. “Then I can’t find detergent. Then if I get
detergent, there’s no water.”
Some
items that aren’t priced-controlled, like deodorant, are also hard to come by.
Finding them can be like winning the lottery in a region where temperatures are
infernal year-round.
“Look
what I got!” a woman, waving a scented body spray after leaving a pharmacy,
exclaimed to other shoppers. “But don’t go there, it’s all out now.”
No comments:
Post a Comment