Still in Moscow, Maduro gave an interview today on Russia Today, the state-owned news network. The interview, in Spanish, can be seen here.
During the interview, Maduro said that the scarcity crisis in the country was “a tremendous challenge” for him, and that he was personally going to oversee a new program to put an end to it. Maduro said that while his government was doing everything in its power to alleviate the scarcity, “there is lots left to be done”.
Maduro said that his new anti-scarcity initiative would be implemented over the next 90 days, and that:
… [I will] personally dedicate myself, along with special teams (…) to stabilize and regulate the distribution system por encima de todos [literally, “above all of them”; akin to, “acting above”] these capitalists who spend their time sabotaging the country’s economy.
It is unclear exactly what the new measures, if any, will look like, since Maduro did not provide any concrete details.
Maduro also spoke briefly on the Venezuelan opposition, saying that “almost all of the sectors of the opposition are involved in plans to overthrow the government”.
Fingerprint Scanning System Installation Nearly Complete
Minister of Nutrition Carlos Osorio announced today that a biometric rationing system was finally ready to be rolled out after being announced late last year. Fingerprint scanners installed at cash registers in state-run supermarkets will limit the quantity of 23 basic necessities Venezuelans are able to buy. The system is called Sistema de Abastecimiento Seguro.
Below, Osorio’s announcement along with my translation:
Osorio: … to the Venezuelan people. Right now, all of our Mercal and PDVAL supermarkets have the fingerprint scanning system installed. Next, we’ll come up with a sure-stock card which is part of the mechanism ordered by our president to control product distribution.This week, we should have the system up-rand running in what people call “the cloud” to allow for all of the shopping to be connected so that we can bring the economic war under control. [This will stop] people from going out and buying out of panic, because they want to hoard products in their homes out of a fear that the product won’t exist in the future.
The Venezuelan people can rest assured that our revolutionary Bolivarian government – the heirs of the glory of Simon Bolivar, our liberator, and of the glory of our eternal commander Hugo Chavez – that we will do whatever we have to do to protect the people. To our revolutionary Bolivarian government, the issue of food is an issue of national security. It’s something that is necessary for human beings.
Unfortunately, thanks to capitalism, these [supermarket] chains only exist to make money. Thanks to this idea from our eternal commander Hugo Chavez, and thanks to the strength with which our President Nicolas Maduro continues to deepen our distribution chains, these [state-owned supermarket] chains will continue to exist to serve the people.
Once the system is fully implemented in all state-owned supermarkets, it will be installed in private supermarkets within the next month and a half.
In Venezuela 