4 Board Members of Enne Superstores Arrested in Venezuela for Food Hoarding
Northwestern Venezuela, especially the extreme northwestern state of Zulia, is an anti-Chavez stronghold, noted for its opposition. It borders Colombia to the east and the state of Tachira (another opposition heavy town) to the south. It's an import/export zone with lots of smuggling activities.
By Manuel Hernandez Z.
Saturday, 18 May 2013
Company sources confirmed the arrest of William Chacin, Enzo Chacin and two others not identified. The arrest occurred after a subpoena from the Public Ministry. The representatives of the chain remain in custody of the GNB near the Port of Maracaibo
(Picture not showing here)
The arrest of the four executives happened the day after a supervisory committee seized 50 tons of food. (File: Vannyver Viloria)
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The incident comes a day after officials from Zulia's Ministry of Security and Public Order, and from the Public Ministry and the Institute for the Defense of People's Access to Goods and Services (Indepabis), visited two stores of the chain and seized 50 tons of hoarded food.
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Noris Marquez, Indepabis regional representative, stated that no fine was imposed on the chain that day but he mentioned Articles 111 and 112 of the Law on Defense of People's Access to Goods and Services (Depabis). He highlighted article114, which states that illegal hoarding shall be punished severely. "The case has been transferred to the criminal branch. There have to be criminal sanctions," he told our newspaper.
Inventory stored
Among the items confiscated on Thursday by the supervisory committee, there were 7,700 liters of oil, 441 sacks of precooked corn flour, six thousand kilos of sugar, 50 boxes of margarine, 12,000 cases of toothpaste and 450 units of bathroom soap bars.
http://www.laverdad.com/economia/27698-detienen-a-directivos-de-supermercado.html
In another article about this seizure, Jairo Ramirez, Secretary of Public Safety and Public Order, stated: "The hoarding was of staples such as milk, sugar, flour, rice, cooking oil and margarine, items that were hoarding in quantities above the 20 day supply limit."
Some pictures from this incident
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.620856224609363.1073741867.140256176002706&type=1
Thousands of kilos of sugar, hundreds of sacks of precooked cornflour, cooking oil etc no wonder the opposition *cares* so much that common people had to wait 8 hours in line just to get sugar, cornflour and other goods
= new reply since forum marked as read
6000 kilos of chicken confiscated in downtown Maracaibo. 600 government officials conducting inspections
may 16, 2013
The Secretary of Security and Public Order in Zulia state, Jairo Ramirez, reported that a total of 600 staff are inspecting the Simon Bolivar Market, located in the historic center of the city and so far have seized several sacks of sugar, oil , flour, rice, diapers.
Also during the inspection six thousand kilos of chicken that were in a truck cellar were confiscated. Vivian Olivera, regional coordinator explained that SADA was confiscated due to irregularities in the transportation: "The transportation documents had one route but this was diverted". The chickens will be sold at regulated prices tomorrow, pointed Olivera.
For his part, Secretary of Security and Public Order state appealed to all traders to work according to the law: "I call on to all traders and entrepreneurs to sell products according to law, those who adhere to the law will have no problem. "
He mentioned that this is all part of Operation "Antibachaqueo" that began this week in which over a thousand tons of basic foods have been seized: "The plan has been implemented as it was designed, everything we've found was a shortage item, "said Ramirez.
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http://noticiaaldia.com/2013/05/600-funcionarios-inspeccionan-mercado-simon-bolivar-en-el-centro-de-maracaibo/
Last edited Fri May 31, 2013, 12:43 PM - Edit history (2)
The inspection took place in the wee hours between Wednesday night and Tuesday morning
Milk, sugar, rice, oil, margarine....
It's all very planned.
First barely stock the shelves with certain items keeping these shortage items in storerooms instead, then cause a run on the markets (this is the famous bachaqueo) (with a dash of smuggler friends swooping in too for good measure)
Then broadcast the manufactured plight to the world with pictures like this crying that there are no supplies!
Lol. The picture below, again from Maracaibo, was taken early Wednesday morning after the government sent in 600 officials to conduct *surprise inspections* on these border areas where Uribe swore he'd attack Chavez from. Sacks of flour, oil, milk, mayonaise, coffee and (surprise surprise) toilet paper, all of it over the 20 day supply limit permitted in warehouses
And the same right wing *business* community that causes so many problems in the US, blames the government for the lack of love they feel from the little people. It's the same scam everywhere, like Enron's artificial gas shortages where hospitals had to rely on generators and streetlights on busy expressways weren't working and people died in car accidents for greed.
The toilet paper was a cute touch but it's not fooling anyone except those who think they're fooling anyone with their talk of how great the Free Market is and if Venezuela would only play ball, they'd have plenty of... toilet paper. No free education, no housing, no free healthcare, no strong labor laws, but they'll have... toilet paper lol.
Make them scream
... but I think this reflects classism in Latin America. Higher education was pretty much restricted and elitist not so long ago in Latin America. Most engineering student attending public universities still come from the upper classes, and private engineering courses are expensive. This may change in the future since governments are expanding the offer of public courses and financing students from lower classes. But so far, this persists: professionals such as engineering, doctors, lawyers, economists tend to be more conservative, while the working class, Humanities academics, and professionals devoted to public or social service (teachers, social workers, historians, etc.) tend to be more progressive.
As for growh rates, here are the charts of Venezuela's GDP growth from 1998 to 2008:
at least it's not shown in this data.
Regarding my LA engineer buddies, yes, they were very much of European descent. Shame really, as we need more diversity in engineering. It's currently dominated by male whites and Asians. I met very few African-American engineers, and only a few Puerto Rican.
There aren't even that many controls. There are only about 20 products on the price control list despite all the gnashing of teeth you hear. Toilet paper is one of them. The rest are baby food, diapers, personal hygiene products, mineral water and pasteurized fruit juice. You can check this for yourself at the SundeCOP website and click on the red box "Consulto los precios maximos de venta al publico" to see how few items are on the price control list. Or better yet, here's an easier list straight from the Price Control Branch
The controlled price for toilet paper is $8.20(USD) for 12 rolls. Is that so unreasonable? Especially in a country where 60% of the population is very poor and 80% would be classified poor by US standards?
The other place to check for agricultural price controls is the govt website of Gacete Officiel Here's the bulletin for May. I noted with amusement that again, there are few items on it (chicken, powdered milk, cheese, basics what).
My take, as you know is item #2.The business community is still angry that Chavez took oil money to subsidize a livable diet for the poor and selling them food at a discount in special markets in poor neighborhoods. Wealthy food producers and importers, almost all of them tied to the opposition, don't like that so they're trying to raise prices by hoarding. If they can make the government subsidies appear meaningless economically and cause political unrest while they're at it, they're guaranteed cheap labor and huge future profits again.
They've been caught doing this too many times and several times in Venezuela. Before the 2002 coup, they were hoarding all the basic goods too thinking it would get more people on their side when they tried to oust Chavez. They failed miserably. And they've failed every single time. If you really want to know about this subject talk to the Magistrate. He's an expert on it and can give you the whole sordid history. And talk a long look at these charts which explain why the private sector is so pissed off.
Your reasoning that maybe they're just not producing the stuff because there isn't enough profit would make sense if they hadn't been caught hoarding the same items for which there was a shortage. No government, anywhere in the world, can be expected to tolerate that.
And it's not just hoarding, it's also smuggling for profit. Venezuela's subsidized gas, for example, is probably the cheapest in the world. So what did certain people do? They went hog crazy for profit and started smuggling it into Colombia so Chavez had to introduce gas rationing on the border states. They do the same thing with the food too, smuggle it into Colombia for profit, like the US/Canada cigarette smuggling rings.
They're not being asked to produce good without a profit. This is where the Venezuela model got a lot of criticism from Socialists and Communist. Private business can make a profit there. It just can't be obscene. Think of our banks for a good comparison.
Another thing is that only certain items have price controls in Venezuela. Those 'certain items' are basic things people need to live. There are price controls on cars too because car dealers were fixing the prices and flipping them for several times their worth, gouging the consumers again.
Look at this company, it was allowed to produce and sell food in Venezuela. These are the kind of vultures who want the price controls gone. And why? For multimillion dollar salaries, bonuses and stock market speculation. So a CEO can sit in the boardroom and tell his officers he wants a 10% increase in profits next year so they squeeze the consumer dry. Now the shoes on the other foot with the consumers dictating the terms and they don't like it.
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“Initiate the process of expropriation of Cargill, and with that a legal investigation, since what they are doing is a flagrant violation,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez declared on national television Wednesday.
Vice Minister of Agriculture and Land, Richard Canán, reported the results of the investigation, which was carried out by Venezuela’s Institute in Defense of People’s Access to Goods and Services (INDEPABIS) at the request of rice producers in the region around the processing plant in Portugesa state.
“Cargil is not even producing one single kilogram of regulated rice, but they do produce 2,400 tons of pre-cooked rice, which is not subject to regulation” said Canán. Also, INDEPABIS found approximately 18,000 tons of non-modified rice stored in the plant’s warehouse.
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Last Sunday, the government took temporary administrative control of a Polar plant in Guárico state that was also enhancing its rice to avoid price controls. With the support of the workers, the plant is now processing rice that Polar had stored away, and the government is in discussions with the owners about next steps, according to INDEPABIS.
State inspectors found no irregularities at another private rice plant in Guárico state, so the government did not intervene in that plant.
After ordering the Cargill expropriation, Chávez told his ministers to begin inspections of producers of flour, oil, and toilet paper. He said the state “will take decisive measures in favor of the people against those who do not abide by the law.”
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Cargill produces food and provides agricultural, financial, and industrial services in 67 countries, according to the company website. It reported nearly $4 billion in net earnings in 2008, a 36% increase over the previous year, while the number of people suffering hunger worldwide increased to a record 923 million.
This work is licensed under a Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Creative Commons license
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/4267
These people are not honest Flatulo. They're no more honest than Archer Midland Daniels in the US who now own about 80% of our food supply and keep blaming Mother Nature but never their billions of dollars worth of salaries, bonuses and perks. They cry about price controls, never mentioning that they are making a profit, and never mentioning any illicit activities.
As we drive past the sugar mill belching a large plume of grey smoke, Franco waves his hand out the window at the miles of sugar cane extending in every direction. “How is it possible that we had a shortage of sugar here?” he asks with more than a slight tinge of anger in his voice.
I shrug. “You had a shortage of sugar?”
He looked at me with alarm. “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear about it,” he said, “yes, sugar — and milk and oil. And even, for a time, coffee, believe it or not. All this went to Colombia, and then we had to buy it all back.”
I ask him to explain.
“It happened last year just before the referendum. Polar, Alfonso Rivas y Compañia, Cargill and some other companies related to Purina and others, were sending all this stuff out of the country to be sold at market prices in Colombia. You see, the prices were being controlled here in Venezuela to make food available and affordable to working people. So what happened was these companies sent all this out, truckload after truckload: caravans of all this food, into Colombia. And we had to buy it all back.”
We pass through another alcabala where there is a National Guard truck with an x-ray machine and a conveyor belt attached. We dutifully roll down the tinted windows and turn off the air conditioner. We’re hit with a blast of dry air as we smile at the guards, who smile back, and then wave us through.
The overriding reason the corporations shipped food to Colombia was, of course, profiteering: a liter of milk sold in a transitional socialist economy won’t command the same price as the same liter sold in Colombia’s “free trade” capitalist markets. But there was also a political reason, and that was the referendum of December 2, Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution’s first electoral defeat. The shortages, engineered by the very same opposition which decried them, then blamed them on Chávez, ironically boosted dissatisfaction sufficiently to defeat the initiatives for the further socialization of the economy. The referendum lost by less than one percentage point.
Franco waves his hand in front of him again. “Chavez is a plainsman and he has a long vision. He’s a great chess player who turns defeats into victories. And so he set up these checkpoints to stop what was really highway robbery by the big corporations, and then he began to nationalize the food industries.”
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Franco orders a small black espresso and a small espresso with milk, a café marrón. He dumps a packet of sugar in each of the two little plastic cups, the sizes of large thimbles. I ask him if there are still shortages. He laughs.
“Not any more. Not since Chavez started nationalizing the food companies. Lacteos Los Andes, which represents over forty percent of the market in milk and milk products, is now state owned. He also created Pedeval, a PDVSA (Venezuela Petroleum Company) project which buys food from overseas and sells it here in Venezuela at very low prices. Then, to give a little to the capitalists, he also raised the maximum price for milk and suddenly there was milk everywhere. So he used the carrot with one hand, and the stick with the other.”
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“Look at that. Smart business people know they can do good business with Chavez,” he says. Someone honks at us and quickly passes, the roar of an engine temporarily drowning out Franco’s words. “If they push too hard and disrupt the country with another attempt at a golpe (coup) then he nationalizes them. Otherwise, if they cooperate with the new socialist economy, they win and make their money. Either way he has stopped them at the checkpoints.”
“That may be true, Franco, but then, what makes this a “socialist” economy?” I ask.
To my dismay, Franco takes his eyes off the road to look at me. “Making food, housing and education accessible to all as a top priority. Profit has to be a second priority,” he replies.
Check, mate.
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3580
In any event I am displeased that poster complained about regular folks smuggling gasoline. Fill up a gas tank in Venezuela for $1 (subsidized to the tune of something like $25 billion a year when only 15% of Venezuelans have cars), drive over the border to Colombia for a "visit" to friends or something, siphon it off at half market rates, buy food, clothing, and other essentials. It really does show a disconnect there because these people aren't exactly mobsters or thugs, they're everyday people who've found a way to make money. It reminds me of people chastising people on food stamps for selling their food stamps for cash (or as when I was a kid and we were on food stamps and they gave you back change, I was sent in to stores to make change, buy a coke, get back 75 cents, etc). Yes it is illegal, but it is not immoral, people do these things for a reason.
Look at these criminals:
The really immoral, unethical, cronies, are those who fill up tanker trucks and ships with gasoline and whom the national guard turns a blind eye to. Such an operation is mind bogglingly insane and it requires the knowledge (and bribes) of top level chavistas for it to go on (either in the military or in the government).
They just can't gouge the consumers at will like they're used to, especially the transnationals. If they weren't making a tidy profit, they would have left long ago.
Thanks to Prolesa, local milk farmers now have an alternative source to sell their milk to rather than being at the mercy of prices set by profit hungry multinationals that often exported the product for higher profits.
Instead, local farmers can now earn more for their milk and also produce quality products at fair prices for the local community and surrounding areas.
In an effort to keep prices as low as possible for consumers, Prolesa members work with other farmers, communal councils and workers at the local Ministry of Agriculture and Land (MAT) office to promote a campesino market.
This allows producers to sell their produce directly to the consumer, cutting out intermediaries.
Venezuelan campesinos like Alfredo are in an almost unique position of counting on the support of their government in this struggle for food sovereignty.
The goal of food sovereignty is enshrined in Venezuela’s constitution, which was adopted in a 1999 referendum.
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This work is licensed under a Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Creative Commons license
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6214
Pharma execs in the US think it's reasonable to have multimillion dollar bonuses every year and mid-level managers wouldn't dream of flying economy class. Their executive management wouldn't dream of flying commercial. They wouldn't dream of living in less than a mansion (look what happened to real estate prices in Silicon Valley as a result, where needed workers like cops, teachers and fireman have to commute 4 hours a day to get to work now).
They've created a vicious model and consumers pay for this because we let them. And we can't stop them either because they own almost everyone who could.
I don't know what your definition of reasonable profit is but mine isn't Colgate's or Archer Midland Daniel's. And tax codes haven't been a great help. We swore for eons that was the answer but look where we are. Huge profitable multinationals like GE pay no taxes. They hide their money overseas, in GE's case [link:$108 Billion Overseas - priva|108 Billion] after you and I bailed them out, and gets excused with tripe like this "GE is often derided for its minimal or non-existent federal tax bill, yet it employees tens of thousands of people who all pay some income tax."
Granadillo explained that the 19 products had been chosen for regulation due to their importance for family budgets and after a study found that from 2007 - 2011 they had increased 400% in price, well above inflation.
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6905
400% ? That's price-gouging. No responsible government can tolerate that. Tax codes don't work very well because of who writes the tax codes. I prefer what the Latin American governments are doing, negotiate fair prices or kick them out and do it yourself. Brazil, for example, regularly breaks US patent laws regularly on medication because drug manufacturer's idea of *reasonable profits* make no sense for the citizens it has a responsibility to protect (one case).
There was a time when people made huge discoveries, developments, without the profit motive.
If Polio was practically eliminated, it's because Salk was horrified at the idea of putting a patent on his vaccine. ( "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"
Same with the Curie's arduous R&D into radium. We're not all selfish and things weren't always like this. A very good biologist friend of mine, an old man with many discoveries and achievements once very sadly remarked that his field died out in the US when people started doing things for profit instead of doing them for the love of biology. Kill the profit motive. A reasonable profit ok, if we must, but not what's going on now.
While price controls already exist for some basic foods such as cooking oil and rice, the law taking effect Tuesday extends them to a wider range of goods and gives the government more enforcement authority.
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Chavez accused large transnational companies and local monopolies of "exploiting the people" by unjustifiably boosting prices.
"Whenever we increase salaries, they immediately raise prices,"
http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=134352313
They have a tough battle ahead because the selfish ones, the greedy ones won't give up their profits without a fight. They'd rather see working class families before giving them out. They've made that clear all over the world. Including Venezuela where this charming attitudes is rife: (the caps are all Conchita's)
http://infosurhoy.com/cocoon/saii/xhtml/en_GB/features/saii/features/main/2013/03/22/feature-02
