Venezuelan state governor: Cuba inefficient at managing ports, food distribution [View all]

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http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/19/2959486/venezuelan-state-governor-cuba.html

Hugo Chávez’s government has granted Cuba key concessions in Venezuela’s food distribution system by making the island its purchasing agent abroad as well as its seaport manager — activities that represent a fabulous business for the Castro brothers while generating more scarcity and huge losses for Venezuela.

The governor of the state of Carabobo, Henrique Salas Feo, said that a great part of the problems of scarcity and cost of living increases in Venezuela could be attributed to the corruption of people close to its government and Cuba’s inefficiency managing the facilities at Puerto Cabello.


“Puerto Cabello is the entry gate to Venezuela; it handles 80 percent of everything that enters or leaves the country, but since the Cubans took over, things are getting worse by the day, which is affecting Venezuelans’ daily life,” Salas said in a telephone interview with El Nuevo Herald.
“The economic reality of all Venezuelans depends on the good management of the port, but imported goods are incurring in enormous delays that create scarcity and increase costs that end up transferred to the consumer,” he said.

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The port terminal is of particular importance due to the severe deterioration of the Venezuelan productivity as a result of government policies, which has increased the dependence on imports, he said.
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“(The Cubans) control everything that comes in and goes out. We are importing meat from Nicaragua. Yet often that container does not come from Nicaragua and it is subject to a triangulation whereby a Cuban food enterprise buys the meat at a certain price and later sells it to Venezuela at a higher price,” Salas said.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/19/2959486/venezuelan-state-governor-cuba.html#storylink=cpy