PSUV deputy and former Minister of Housing and Habitat Ricardo Molina said yesterday that the national government might have to stop building subsidized homes for the country’s poorest citizens should the National Assembly approve a set of reforms for the Mision Vivienda subsidized housing program.
Molina accused the proposed reform of attempting to turn Mision Vivienda into a “capitalist project” by allowing tenants to sell the units in which they live. Molina also suggested that the market for subsidized housing units that the reform would create might result in an increase in land values, which Molina speculates could put an end to Mision Vivienda:
This is a law that will liberalize the price of land, and if this happens then we can’t keep building because the money that goes towards buying raw materials would have to go to buying the land where the Mision Vivienda project is being built.
Molina conceded that it was unlikely that any of the people living in Mision Vivienda housing would protest receiving deeds to their units as the law reform proposes.
Mendoza: Crisis Recipe “Made in Venezuela”
Polar head Lorenzo Mendoza continued his offensive against the national government today. In an interview that aired on Globovision, Mendoza placed responsibility for the current crises affecting the country entirely on Venezuela, saying:
We stepped in this because of the [economic] model that we’ve got now (…) the recipe for this crisis is Venezuela. It was made in Venezuela, and it is a disaster.
When asked if he believed the average Venezuelan should prepare to make sacrifices in order to find a solution to the crisis, Mendoza said:
Look, we’ve got hyperinflation happening along with an economic contraction of 8%. How much more suffering can there be? I think the opposite is true, actually. Looking for financing options and agreements will take us to a place where we can reverse this crisis.
Mendoza’s company is the primary producer of harina PAN [corn flour], a vital ingredient that is ubiquitous in Venezuelan kitchens. When Mendoza was asked how much a bag of corn flour should sell for, Mendoza pointed to the troubling distortions created by government-mandated prices:
Right now, Bs. 100. Do you know what the [government-set price] of a bag of harina PAN is? Bs. 19, man. One bag of harina PAN can make 20 arepas [a staple Venezuelan dish]. An arepa costs Bs, 100, and a kilogram of corn flour that makes 20 arepas costs Bs. 19. [The government] is killing agricultural industry (…) this is unsustainable.
Capriles: Corruption Caused Gov’t to Fail
Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles said on his radio show earlier today that the reason Venezuela was in such a deep crisis was that the PSUV had been consumed by corruption. Capriles also said that the national government is not interested in solving the country’s problems: rather, it is more interested in staying in power by any means necessary.
Capriles said:
What the government is trying to do is buy time. That’s why we have to find our own solutions (…) we have to prioritize the economic and social spheres, and make real proposals to get the country out of the inflation, the scarcity and the collapse of purchasing power.
Capriles also criticized the government for spending billions of dollars on frivolous projects outside of the country:
They gifted Argentina $3.8 billion so that it could pay off its debts. They gave away millions of dollars to build highways in Bolivia, a hospital in Uruguay, a power plant in Nicaragua. They sponsored a float for the Carnival in Brazil. They also remodeled the presidential palace in Honduras, back when Mr. Zelaya was there. They paid for a concert in Havana, and the construction of a luxury cruise port in Jamaica.
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