Venezuela Issues ID Cards to Curtail Food Hoarding

Venezuela Issues ID Cards to Curtail Food Hoarding
CARACAS, Venezuela April 1, 2014 (AP)
By HANNAH DREIER Associated Press

Battling food shortages, the government is rolling out a new ID system
that is either a grocery loyalty card with extra muscle or the most
dramatic step yet toward rationing in Venezuela, depending on who is
describing it.

President Nicolas Maduro's administration says the cards to track
families' purchases will foil people who stock up on groceries at
subsidized prices and then illegally resell them for several times the
amount. Critics say it's another sign the oil-rich Venezuelan economy is
headed toward Cuba-style dysfunction.

Registration begins at more than 100 government-run supermarkets across
the country Tuesday, and working-class shoppers who sometimes endure
hours-long lines at government-run stores to buy groceries at steeply
reduced prices are welcoming the plan.

"The rich people have things all hoarded away, and they pull the
strings," said Juan Rodriguez, who waited two hours to enter the
government-run Abastos Bicentenario supermarket near downtown Caracas on
Monday, and then waited another three hours to check out.

Rigid currency controls and a shortage of U.S. dollars make it
increasingly difficult for Venezuelans to find imported basic products
like milk, flour, toilet paper and cooking oil. Price controls don't
help either, with producers complaining that some goods are priced too
low to make a profit and justify production.

As of January, more than a quarter of basic staples were out of stock in
Venezuelan stores, according to the central bank's scarcity index. The
shortages are among the problems cited by Maduro's opponents who have
been staging protests since mid-February.

Checkout workers at Abastos Bicentenario were taking down customers'
cellphone numbers Monday, to ensure they couldn't return for eight days.
Shoppers said employees also banned purchases by minors, to stop parents
from using their children to engage in hoarding, which the government
calls "nervous buying."

Rodriguez supports both measures.

"People who go shopping every day hurt us all," he said, drawing
approving nods from the friends he made over the course of his afternoon
slowly snaking through the aisles with his oversized cart.

Reflecting Maduro's increasingly militarized discourse against opponents
he accuses of waging "economic war," the government is calling the new
program the "system of secure supply."

Patrons will register with their fingerprints, and the new ID card will
be linked to a computer system that monitors purchases. Food Minister
Felix Osorio says it will sound an alarm when it detects suspicious
purchasing patterns, barring people from buying the same goods every
day. But he also says the cards will be voluntary, with incentives like
discounts and entry into raffles for homes and cars.

Expressionless men with rifles patrolled the warehouse-size supermarket
Monday as shoppers hurried by, focusing on grabbing meat and pantry
items before they were gone. Long shelves that should have been heaped
with rice and coffee instead displayed six brands of ketchup. There was
plenty of frozen beef selling for 22.64 bolivars a kilogram — $3.59 at
the official exchange rate, or 32 cents at the black market rate
increasingly used in pricing goods.

A local consumer watchdog, the National User and Consumer Alliance,
invokes the specter of Cuba's struggling economy and calls the ID
program rationing by another name. It predicts all Venezuelans without
cards will soon be barred from shopping at state supermarkets.

After five decades of rationing basic goods for Cubans, President Raul
Castro's communist government is phasing out subsidized foodstuffs as it
opens the island's economy to private enterprise. Cubans most dependent
on the rationed goods say that in recent years their monthly quotas
provided only enough food for a couple of weeks.

Until now, Venezuela's restrictions on purchases have been toughest in
its cities on the border with Colombia. Venezuelans can make a killing
by buying goods at below-market prices and smuggling them into Colombia
for sale at much higher prices.

Defenders of Venezuela's socialist government say price controls imposed
by the late President Hugo Chavez help poor people lead more dignified
lives, and the United Nations has recognized Venezuela's success in
eradicating hunger.

So complaints aren't heard in the long lines at government supermarkets.
One young mother shielded her eyes against the afternoon sun as she
approached a cashier with sugar, flour and Frosted Flakes cereal. She
arrived at 10 a.m., but didn't blame the government or its opponents for
the long wait.

"I don't know if it's worth it, but when my children are crying what
else can you do," said the woman, who declined to provide her name as an
armed National Guardsmen watched her at the checkout line.

She planned another five-hour run to another supermarket Tuesday to get
everything the downtown store was out of.

———

Hannah Dreier on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hannahdreier

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/venezuela-issues-id-cards-curtail-food-hoarding-23137234?singlePage=true