Ever since Maduro announced the implementation of a fingerprint scanning system as a means to combat scarcity last week, Venezuelans have been looking for specific details on the scope and nature of the program. Far from providing clarification, the government has contradicted itself on an almost daily basis, adding an element of confusion that leaves virtually every question of the system unanswered and muddled in inconsistencies.
Below is a point-by-point highlight of what has been said – and then unsaid – about the fingerprint scanning system:
On its scope:
- On August 20, Maduro said: “The order has been given… to install the biometric system in all of the establishments and centres of distribution and businesses in the republic. In all of them.”
- On August 21, the Minister of Food, Hebert Garcia Plaza, said: “Every store that sells basic food items should have the system”.
- On August 31, Diosdado Cabello said that the system will be mandatory only in state-owned supermarket chains and in the border states.
On its nature:
- On August 22, Maduro said: “The biometric system isn’t going to ration anything (…) the biometric system [isn’t meant] to regulate, [it’s meant] to ensure that everything the republic produces reaches the people”.
- On August 23, the Superintendent of Fair Prices, Andres Eloy Mendez, said: The system “will not allow” people “to buy exuberant amounts so that they can’t loot our supermarkets”.
- On August 31, Diosdado Cabello said: “No one’s going to tell you that you can’t buy two packs of corn flour. That’s not real. That’s not real. What we want to know is who – because this is a thing that happens – that a person goes 10 times to the supermarket. 10 times, in one day, to the supermarket“.
In other words, we know exactly nothing about the fingerprint scanning system because at least three different government officials have contradicted one another in their description of it.
It’s either a system that is going to be installed in every store in the country, like Maduro and Plaza said, or a system that is only going to be installed in government-run supermarkets and the border states like Cabello asserted. It’s either going to not ration purchases, as Maduro claimed, or it’s going to limit the amount of food you can buy, as Mendez and Cabello said.
Yet, right now, the system is all of those things, because there hasn’t been a clear, unequivocal statement on its nature and scope from anyone in the government so far. It’s as if no one really knows what the system looks like.
By the Government’s Own Logic, the System will Fail
Most disturbingly is the fact that by the government’s own logic, the system will not work. Both Maduro and Cabello have said that the point of the fingerprint scanning system is to tackle the fact that, as Cabello put it last night, “food doesn’t get to where it’s supposed to be get“. This is because, as the government would argue, food and basic necessities are siphoned off at different levels in the distribution chain for smuggling. For example, if a factory produces 100 packs of corn flour and ships them off to a supermarket, only 10 packs might reach the store because 90 have been stolen along the way.
How, then, is a fingerprint scanning system that works at the last step of the supply chain – the point of sale – supposed to stop food from being stolen at every other previous point in the chain? If the problem is that food isn’t getting to the supermarkets, isn’t the solution to ensure food gets to the supermarket?
The government’s “solution”, therefore, is as much as a solution as painting over a patch of mould on a bathroom wall. Sure, the wall might look O.K. thanks to the paint, but the mould is still underneath the paint, growing and continuing to cause damage.
The discussion on the fingerprint scanning system over the past two weeks has been really eye-opening. It is obvious that not only does the government not know what it’s own plans are, but by their own reasoning, the plan is not going to work.
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