Journals
Monday,Mar 28 2005, 11:54:59 PMF. Venezuelan minimum wage rises to Bs.247,10
F. Venezuelan minimum wage rises to Bs.247,104 (Tues. Sept. 30, 2003)
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1189
Jun 02, 2004 By: Felipe Pérez Martí - ( Altered by MER to make less wimpy)
To define the model of Venezuela's development using a standard terminology, one would say that we have “development from below,” or “trickle up” economics, as opposed to “trickle down” economics. Given that the vast majority of people in Venezuela are impoverished, attention to the social problem is a matter of life or death....
Two hundred billion dollars (eight times its external debt) have fled the country (since the mid 70's) and investment, employment, and production have plummeted, with a distribution of income that has placed the country among the most unequal countries in the world (third, above South Africa and Brazil).
True love, or “solidarity,” means caring for others. In Economics, the literature on altruism, in the sense of true love, beginning with Chicago's Nobel laureate Gary Becker, has shown (see Marhuenda and Pérez-Martí) that caring for others implies transfers without a counterpart and that this can actually solve market failures. In an uncertain environment with incomplete markets, families, groups of friends, and entire communities experience voluntary transfers from members of the group that have good income to members hit by bad luck. Similarly, when the market fails due to the existence of public goods, communities benefit from caring relationships in order to improve upon the market’s sub-optimal allocations....
A common example is when employees meet to share information, a public good by nature, in order for the firm to perform well. It is no coincidence that firms invest in “moral capital” formation, such as spending on courses on “emotional intelligence” for employees. Cooperatives, which solve the principal-agent problem (asymmetric information between owners managers and workers) are a place for efficiency gains through better production processes and efficient distribution of operations information throughout the company. The key characteristic that sets apart long lasting cooperatives is the bondage and caring among firm members. Without extending the analysis to other instances of market failure (government failures, externalities, market power, private information, full rationality and well defined property rights) we will say that solidarity is an important element in human culture that improves efficiency.
The Venezuelan government takes this into account in its policy measures. A whole society, in fact, can be solidaristic in order to solve market or government failures. The application of the equal opportunities principle, implying fiscal transfers, and altruistic private organization shows the truth of this.
Development from below means providing opportunities for the poor regarding land, credit, housing, education, health and social security, in a macroeconomic environment of external stability and fiscal sustainability. Small and medium sized businesses, which are close political allies of the new process, and of course big firms, even though belonging to the traditional oligarchies, will benefic from “trickle up” process of increasing demand and human capital formation. Solidarity is the way Venezuela has chosen to put in place programs of opportunities for the poor, which realize that society itself can exercise power in order to solve economic and social problems. It has chosen to promote cooperatives among the poor, providing credits, land, technological support, education, health and social security.
In 2002 a modern system of income taxation was designed in order to deal with the structural shortage of non-oil income that reaches only about 10% of GDP, while in Latin America that figure is 23%, and in the US is 33%. An exchange rate control was set in place to keep the rich from removing large amounts of their earnings from the country.
Venezuela is choosing to improve its public administration with a radical political choice. What makes the difference in Venezuela’s new constitution is participative democracy. This simply means that people govern themselves, at least at the local level where each citizen has politically the same power. There is a deeper sense, in which a “path of solidarity” has just begun in Venezuela. Solidarity is something that comes from people's feelings. A government would be able to reflect that through economic and social policy, since that government represents solidaristic people. If people themselves design government policies, those policies are going to reflect people’s preferences. That has not been the case in representative democracy, because of the difficulties of intermediaries in representative democracy, but also because candidates have been imposed by the media, and not really to represent people, but the country’s most powerful interest groups. In a true process of decentralization, people have a direct impact on management. Governing means, besides the design of policies, managing public community projects, controlling expenditures, and evaluating the entire process.
Corruption is rampant in Venezuela today because institutions have not yet changed. But the enormous energy of the population is being organized in a network of groups, called Conexión Social (social connection) and are starting to put this in place, not only to govern at the local level, but to associate local direct power at the regional and national levels, in congresses of community delegates: a sort of senate, with territorial characteristics, but with much more representation than a conventional senate, and with executive power, sharing power with the executive and regional governments.
And those who do not understand what is going on in this regard, do not understand what is going to happen in the next 10 years: great efficiency has already been shown with regard to the “missions”: the active participation of the people demonstrated that very low amounts of money are needed to have a very high impact: bureaucracy will decrease, and expenditures can actually go down in order to make the model sustainable, among other things. -- Felipe Pérez Martí was Minister of Planning and Development under Chavez and is currently professor at IESA, a business administration school. Pérez is also a leading member of Conexión Social (www.conexionsocial.org.ve)
Sunday,Mar 27 2005, 12:32:55 AMVenezuela Agriculture land Reform Part II> t4
Venezuela Agriculture land Reform Part II> The Greening of Venezuela - Agrarian cooperatives, by David Raby
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1226
In the past fifteen months the government has begun to redistribute uncultivated land from private estates or public lands to poor peasants and landless labourers. In a repeat of the agrarian reform programmes carried out decades ago in several Latin American countries, some 2.2 million hectares (5.5 million acres) has already been distributed to 116,000 families organised in cooperatives.
This alone would be remarkable in today’s globalised world, where the very idea of cooperative or collective agriculture has been dismissed as outdated and inefficient, and countries like Mexico have dismantled long-established rural cooperatives and opened their agricultural sectors to the unfettered play of the free market and the consequent domination of private agribusiness. But the Venezuelan agrarian reform goes beyond satisfying peasant land hunger and alleviating poverty. It is based as far as possible on organic practices and is intended as the foundation stone of an entirely new social and economic model, oriented towards self-sufficiency, sustainability and “endogenous development”.
Fighting bureaucracy
Chaguaramal is a newly-cultivated strip of land surrounded by tropical forest and isolated poverty-stricken communities, a few kilometres inland from the Caribbean. Here 144 families have so far benefited from the creation of a SARAO or Self-Organised Rural Association. The Ministry of Planning and Development first provided land, funds and equipment, and people from nearby villages began to organise the new community on a cooperative basis.
But at first the Ministry delegated implementation of the project to a bureaucratic public corporation, CORPOCENTRO, which imposed technical decisions without consultation. Only in August 2003, when the INTI (National Land Institute) took over responsibility for projects of this type, did Chaguaramal take on the characteristics of community self-organisation as originally intended. “We listen to the communities, we open our doors to them so that they can bring to life their own projects and dreams”, says Silvia Vidal, the INTI official now responsible for the SARAOS.
The new settlement (asentamiento) consists of attractive houses built by the residents themselves with materials and technical assistance provided by the State, with carefully cultivated gardens, a school, a health centre and a child care centre. A variety of crops are being produced as well as livestock and fish, and we were treated to a delicious fish barbecue. We saw how the community prepares its own compost and is already recycling most of its waste.
“I’m a member of the SARAO, I joined on 15 April 2002", says Gelipsa Rojas. “My area of work is worm composting, which will give us organic fertiliser...so as not to use chemical fertilisers... “At first [under CORPOCENTRO] they only paid attention to the men, we women stayed at home and only did housework. When the INTI arrived, things changed. There is still machismo but we are gradually getting rid of it. This worm-compost project is run only by women. Now the men help with the housework, we’re both responsible for it...”
Chaguaramal is in Miranda State, with a Governor ferociously opposed to Chávez and the revolutionary process, and so everything achieved in the new settlement has been done despite systematic obstructionism by the State government. In a neighbouring hamlet called Buenos Aires which was not initially included in the project, opposition politicians turned people against the cooperative, saying that it would do nothing for them and would be run on principles of “Cuban slavery”. But now several families from Buenos Aires have been incorporated into the SARAO and everyone can see its benefits.
Developing the interior
Hundreds of kilometres away, over the coastal mountains and in the llanos, the sweltering tropical plains of the interior, we visited a major development project which reflects the Chávez government’s aim of moving people and resources away from the coastal cities. The “Ezequiel Zamora” Agro-Industrial Sugar Complex (CAAEZ) is centred around a state-of-the-art sugar mill now under construction with Cuban technicians and Brazilian equipment, a reflection of the desire for Latin American collaboration. The complex and its associated agricultural cooperatives will produce not only sugar but rice, yucca and other crops in order to promote agricultural self-sufficiency (Venezuela, chronically dependent on oil, imports 70% of its food despite having abundant fertile land).
As long ago as 1975 this area was designated as ideal for sugar production - cane yields here are several times higher than in Cuba or Brazil - and a first-class irrigation system was built but then abandoned due to corruption under previous governments. Then in the 1990s a Costa Rican investor offered to go into partnership with local farmers, making loans for them to produce cane and promising to build a mill, only to abandon the project and take the funds, leaving them in the lurch - “I was one of those who sowed cane and waited nine years for the first harvest, and was unable to harvest the cane because of that gentleman...” declared Francisco, a member of one of the associated cooperatives, bitterly denouncing this example of flight capital.
But now the CAAEZ project is well advanced: a huge undertaking which will eventually employ 15,000 workers, it comprises the sugar mill and other industrial plants as well as the agricultural area. Here too organic methods will be favoured: among other things, sugar-cane bagasse will be composted and supplied to mixed-farming cooperatives. All of the new social programmes are also being implemented here, such as the literacy programme (the Robinson Mission) and the “Into the Neighbourhoods” Mission with its health clinics staffed by Cuban doctors.
The greening of Caracas -- But the greening of Venezuela is not limited to the countryside: in the heart of Caracas, just behind the Hilton Hotel, an abandoned strip of land has been turned into an organopónico, an organic market garden for the intensive production of lettuces, tomatoes and an impressive variety of crops for the urban market. Unemployed people from nearby shanty-towns are given work here and trained as agricultural specialists.
Urban agricultural plots like this are springing up in cities across Venezuela and further contributing to the aim of self-sufficiency. When the project began it was ridiculed by the escuálido opposition, who said it was impossible to produce food here, or that it would be uneconomic. But now people from wealthy neighbourhoods themselves buy the produce when they can get it (which is not easy since demand is so high).
A new socio-economic model -- Agrarian reform, cooperative enterprise, organic agriculture, use of local resources - these are all features of an entirely new socio-economic model for Venezuela. The model is summed up in a programme called the “Vuelvan Caras” Mission (a term almost impossible to translate), which attempts to coordinate all the other programmes and “missions”: it provides government assistance in the form of technical advice and funds derived from oil income, for agricultural, industrial and commercial cooperatives, generating employment and training. It encourages local initiative, self-sufficiency, sustainability and “endogenous development”, development from within and from below, with popular participation. The leading role of women, blacks and indigenous people is also explicitly promoted.
This new model will take years to develop, but it is already under way and being promoted with great enthusiasm. It does not exclude possible nationalisation of some major industries, but it points in a direction which challenges both globalised capitalism and state socialism of the traditional variety. It is also the foundation of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA in its Spanish acronym), which Venezuela is proposing as a progressive alternative to the ALCA (the US-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas). This is why Washington hates Chávez: not because of his revolutionary rhetoric, not because of any threat to “democracy”, but because the Venezuelan process offers a real alternative to US plans for the hemisphere. David Raby is a research fellow at the University of Liverpool's Institute of Latin American Studies.
The promise of land for the people "I'm a landless peasant. I've got land, but it's in the graveyard," says Jesús Vasquez.
For years, any campesino [Peasants, the rural poor] who trespassed on these uncultivated tracts would be caught and imprisoned, or chased out with bullets. The peóns (farm laborers) worked for the miserable daily rate of 3,000 bolos [3,000 bolivars = $1.88]. On tiny fractions of an acre, campesinos grow anaemic maize and live off the Holy Spirit. Anyone who cannot afford to buy or rent an allotment rots, confined to the four walls of some horrible slum on the edge of a town. But those who are very hungry will not wait forever. On 14 October 2000, Jesús Vásquez, along with 25 men and one woman, occupied part of Hato El Charcote. Its owner turned out to be the British Crown, via Flora Companía Anónima. "The government asked them to present the deeds, but they never did. It's effectively state land," explains Vásquez. The enquiry by the National Land Institute (Instituto Nacional de Tierras, INTI), created on 8 January 2002 to enact President Hugo Chávez's land reforms, confirmed this. "Last year we harvested two tonnes of maize. This year we reckon we'll get up to six tonnes and much more later on," says a jubilant Vásquez. "People are growing things and have got enough to eat. It's a magnificent development."
- Maurice Lemoine, Le Monde Diplomatique, October 2003. http://mondediplo.com/2003/10/07venezuela
Solving the land question means the solving of all social questions... possession of land by people who do not use it is immoral -- just like the possession of slaves.
-- Leo Tolstoy
Sunday,Mar 27 2005, 12:18:42 AMVenezuela Agriculture Land Reform Part I Vene
Venezuela Agriculture Land Reform Part I
Venezuela Announces War Against "Latifundios" Jan 14, 2005 By: Jorge Martin
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1351
At a mass rally of 10,000 people on January 10, President Hugo Chavez announced a new decree aimed at speeding up land reform. He was speaking in front of a massive banner with the slogan of 19th century peasant war leader Ezequiel Zamora "Free land and men - War against the latifundia". A number of regional governors, elected in the October 31st elections, have passed regional decrees along the same lines.
Since the Land Act was passed in December 2001, the National Land Institute has distributed 5.5 million acres of land (2.2 million hectares) to peasant cooperatives. Until now the land distributed has been state-owned land and there have been no expropriations. The new decree, called Decreto Zamorano, and passed on the anniversary of the death of Ezequiel Zamora, is aimed at the large landed estates (latifundio) that are poorly used. The Decree is not based on expropriation of private land. A special land commission has been appointed to look into the issue of land ownership and usage. If estates are found not to be productive, then they can be seized (with compensation) and distributed to peasant cooperatives. Chavez has made it that his preferred option is to solve this through negotiation with the land owners (in which they can give up land they do not use), but also that if no agreement is reached, the full strength of the law and of the army will be used to implement land reform.
The El Charcote estate has 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) of land and produces some 450,000 kilos of beef every year. The estate is owned by AgroFlora, a subsidiary of the British Vestey Group (the family of Lord Vestey) a major meat and food multinational which has been operating in South America for decades. The Venezuelan government argues that a large part of this land is not actually owned by the Vestey group and that they are illegally using property belonging to the Venezuelan state. Local peasant leaders argue that the land was bought by dictator Juan Vicente Gomez in the 1930s and that subsequently, all land owned by the dictator was passed over to the Venezuelan state. The intervention at the El Charcote estate was carried out by the governor of Cojedes, Johnny Yánez, with about 200 national guardsmen and police along with helicopters which will allow them to survey the ranch. As part of a regional review of land ownership the Cojedes regional governor sent a commission of enquiry to El Charcote. The ranch has not been seized, but rather there has been an "intervention". A technical team on the ranch will investigate the claims of the British group over the land titles and whether the land is being used to its full capacity.
The structure of land ownership in Venezuela is scandalous. A 1998 census found that 60 percent of Venezuelan farmland was owned by less than 1 percent of the population. The smallest landowners representing 75% of agricultural holdings have to share 6% of the land. The 1998 census also revealed that 90 percent of farmland given to the poor under a 1960 agrarian reform had since returned to large landholders. A revolution that permits this injustice cannot call itself a revolution.
Venezuela, despite having large extensions of fertile land, imports 70% of the foodstuffs that it consumes. Every three months 14,000 tonnes of black beans (caraotas) and other pulses, which are an important part of the staple diet of poor Venezuelans, are imported. Production of caraotas actually collapsed in the 1990s, from 31,376 tonnes in 1988 to 18,627 tonnes in 1999, while the Venezuelan population increased by 20%.
No meaningful land reform possible within the boundaries of private property. The president of the ranch owners association, Betancourt, reacted strongly to the decree, saying in an interview on the Globovision television station that "If they eliminate private property rights, they will also be eliminating the peace in Venezuela''. This is an ominous threat. Some 100 peasant leaders and activists have been killed in disputes over land property with big landowners in the past 4 years. In some areas along the border with Colombia ranch owners have for some time armed white guards modelling themselves on, and sometimes getting advice from, the infamous paramilitary gangs from neighbouring Colombia.
With 5% of landowners controling 80% of the land it is clear that one cannot carry out a land reform policy that will please both the owners of large landed estates and landless peasants. Even the Cojedes governor, Johnny Yanéz, had to say that private property "is a right, but not an absolute one, since the collective interest, public need, and food security are parameters that must justify this private right".
This is not just about land, as the conflict over land reform deepens and land is expropriated for landless peasants, then workers in industry are bound to draw similar conclusions: like the Venepal paper mill, which the owners declared bankrupt and the workers took over and demanded that it be nationalised under workers control. This will spread in all sectors of the economy. The basic needs of the working people of Venezuela (free health care, education for all, a roof over their heads, decent food on their tableand livelihood) are in direct contradiction to the existence of the capitalist system based on private profit and the benefits of a wealthy minority. The Bolivarian revolution should move to wrest from the oligarchy the levers of economic and political power they still control as the only guarantee for the victory of the revolution.
"Imperialism not invincible"
Chavez added that U.S. imperialism is not invincible. "Look at Vietnam, look at Iraq and Cuba resisting, and now look at Venezuela." In reference to the recommendations of some of his close advisors, he said that "some people say that we cannot say nor do anything that can irritate those in Washington." He repeated the words of Argentine independence hero José de San Martin "let's be free without caring about anyone else says."
"When imperialism feels weak, it resorts to brute force. The attacks on Venezuela are a sign of weakness, ideological weakness. Nowadays almost nobody defends neoliberalism. Up until three years ago, just Fidel [Castro] and I raised those criticisms at Presidential meetings. We felt lonely, as if we infiltrated those meetings."
He added that those ideological and economic weaknesses will continue to increase. "Just look at the internal repression inside the United States, the Patriot Act, which is a repressive law against U.S. citizens. They have put in jail a group of journalists for not revealing their sources. They won't allow them to take pictures of the bodies of the dead soldiers, many of them Latinos, coming from Iraq. Those are signs of Goliath's weaknesses."
"The south also exists" He said there were old and new actors in the geopolitical map who are coming into the scene and have an influence in the weaknesses and strengths of the U.S. hegemony. "Today's Russia is not Yeltsin's... there is new Russian nationalism, and I have seen it in the streets of Moscow... there is a good president, Mr. Putin, at the wheel." He also praised China's fast economic growth, and highlighted the new Spanish socialist government, "which no longer bends its knees in front of U.S. imperialism."
Friday,Mar 25 2005, 09:31:36 PMHighlights from: Chavez Followers Get...
Highlights from: Chavez Followers Get Paramilitary Training
Wed Mar 16, By FABIOLA SANCHEZ
CARACAS, Chanting "fatherland or death," dozens of President Hugo Chavez's supporters lined up in formation, vowing to defend the country if the United States tries to invade. Led by an army reservist, the volunteers in black caps said their numbers would swell in the coming months.
The start of training for "Popular Defense Units" marks a more confrontational stage in U.S.-Venezuelan relations. Chavez is tightening his security, [since] Washington backs plots to assassinate him. While U.S. officials seek to isolate a leader who has become a symbol of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, Chavez is warning he will cut off oil exports to the United States if it supports any attempt to overthrow him.
The social0democratic leader [Who promotes a new socialism] called last month for creation of civilian groups to help defend Venezuela; in one poor Caracas neighborhood, about 120 supporters began military-style drills last month even though they have not been issued weapons.
"If an invasion comes, we know what we're going to do," said Manuel Mayan, 36, saluting during training in a parking lot Tuesday night, the first attended by international journalists. Other units will begin training soon in nearby neighborhoods, said Sgt. 2nd Class Ricardo Nahmens.
Some of the men and women — street cleaners, retired teachers and the unemployed — wore military patches on their sleeves, even though they are civilians and they have yet to obtain formal recognition from the government. They consider themselves part of the army reserve forces.
State TV shows video of U.S. officials criticizing Chavez, while playing the "Star Wars" theme music for the "evil empire." Many observers say a U.S. invasion is unlikely, but Chavez's warnings have struck a chord on the streets of the capital, where graffiti now declares: "If they kill Chavez, he will return as millions."
Chavez says his "revolution" for the poor is by nature "anti-imperialist," claiming that has angered the US. Chavez, a former army paratroop commander who is up for re-election next year, has said U.S. plans to support the Venezuelan opposition are an "obscene interference."
The president has been busy signing oil deals with countries from China to India. Analysts suggest he is lining up alternative allies through oil deals to diminish Venezuela's reliance on the United States, its top oil buyer.
"Venezuela will now help the Southern Hemisphere countries with its oil more than it has helped the United States," Chavez said in India this month.
"Chavez has already spent years weaving a clever and intelligent network of interests in the Americas and the rest of the world to accept this challenge," lawyer Italo Luongo Blohm wrote Wednesday in the Venezuelan newspaper El Universal. "Chavez is preparing for a conflict." Information Minister Andres Izarra denied such an agenda, telling reporters Chavez's government "wants to re-establish the best relations with the US" and hopes there is "a change in policy that is aimed at strengthening, normalizing relations with Venezuela."
U.S. diplomats say they are concerned about Venezuelan democracy [even though Chavez has been elected more times than the last 4 US presidents combined], freedom of the press [even though the US supports the murderous Colombian regime which has killed more reporters than the rest of the world combined!], Chavez's stance toward leftist Colombian rebels and moves to buy 10 helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles from Russia.
Every critical statement by officials of the United States — which Chavez calls "the empire" — has drawn a sharp Venezuelan response. "Whoever throws a stone at us, we will throw a stone back," Chavez said Sunday. "We will not keep quiet like before, and even less with the Empire."
Izarra said Tuesday that Venezuela's presidential guard had boosted security to protect Chavez in response to an assassination plot. Officials provided few details of the plot, but have previously demanded the US crack down on ex-Cuban and Venezuelan "terrorists" in Florida who they say are conspiring. Izarra said Venezuela is considering legal options after a woman this week called for Chavez's assassination on a Miami television program.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday that U.S. concerns about Chavez's government are "shared by many in the region" — which Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel quickly contested. "The only one that is concerned is the government in Washington," Rangel said
Thursday,Mar 24 2005, 10:09:05 PMInformation on Venezuela National Budgets: Ve
Information on Venezuela National Budgets:
Venezuela's National Assembly (AN) gives the go ahead for the 2005 budget...
http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=23965
Alia2.net Maitane Larranaga writes: The slight pro-government majority at Venezuela's National Assembly (AN) approved the budget bill and passed the Special Debt Contraction Act for 2005 ... which establishes a macroeconomic condition of 5% growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a significant figure, if it comes along with an improvement in the standard of living of the people in terms of higher employment rates and greater buying power.
The sizable 69.3 trillion bolivares budget is the product of huge oil incomes and internal revenues, a result of an “oil boom” in a country that, on the other hand, is not quite close to winning its war on destitution yet, according to recent reports from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal).
The amount of the budget is equivalent to U$32.233 billion at the 2005 exchange rate of 2,150 bolivares per US$, which reflects a devaluation from the 2004 rate of Bs.1,920 per dollar. In nominal terms, the 2005 budget is 20% higher than the one initially approved of Bs.50 trillion for 2004 ($26.042 billion). To this amount, an additional stream of credit --authorized by the Assembly to cover several expenses -- remains to be added. In what has been the typical atmosphere in this type of discussions, the opposition deputies criticized the budget, deeming it “insincere,” while the “chavistas” praised its virtues and its focus on social spending.
For Rodrigo Cabezas, president of the permanent National Assembly (AN) Finance commission, the budget and the Act for Contraction of Debts, guarantee a spending policy that is linked to national economic growth. According to the legislator, the growth rate will surpass 5%, since in the expense strategy, the investment budget is substantially increased compared to this year’s, thus stimulating added demand in the national economy and encouraging the private sector.
Figures, for what and for whom: And as Chavez has said the figures in the national budget are meaningless if the resources don’t reach the country’s poor majorities, who are part of unemployment and informal economy statistics, and who neither are able to, nor want to settle for handouts coming from the governmental missions. After all, many of the missions, which can not be criticized in their ultimate purpose of providing well being and satisfying some needs that had not been addressed, are currently being supported by streams of petrodollars. And despite what the government might say, if this flow of dollars ever stops, the missions will be sacrificed in order to pay the foreign debt.
Cabezas noted that the 2005 budget is “tied up” to a process of deceleration of the inflation rate, that as a result of fiscal and monetary spending, will be 15% in 2005, which will also benefit the Venezuelan population, particularly employees and blue-collar workers. This year’s inflationary index will be nearing 20%, below the 27.1% index for 2003, according to figures from the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), which have been criticized by some economists, claiming that they don’t reflect the real impact of price increases that diminish the common citizen’s buying power on a daily basis.
In declarations to Venpres, the state news agency, Cabezas added that the budget has a social orientation, since spending increased to 44%. “This is an example of the commitment of this process of changes to the excluded, to the poor,” he commented, in total agreement with the line of the government, which has admitted to have failed in its struggle against poverty and corruption, after six years at the head of the world’s fifth oil producer. ...however, food prices keep rising
Legislators of the opposition criticized the project. Some of them, like Elias Mata, claim that it sets a price per barrel below the value that is really expected by the “revolutionary” government , which is handing out, in large sums and with few restraints, the surplus oil incomes.
For the 2005 budget, the oil incomes were calculated on the basis of both an average exportation price on all oil products at $23 per barrel and a daily production of 3.5 million barrels per day, including the production from the Venezuelan state run oil company PDVSA, and from the strategic associations with foreign companies. The ex-minister of Finance, Tobias Nobrega, has admitted that the estimated price is “conservative,” and that Venezuela could receive $4 billion in extra oil incomes if, as expected, the price of hydrocarbons reaches U$5 above the official estimate. The ordinary incomes in the budget are 25.5 trillion bolivares for non-oil related tax collection, 26.1 trillion bolivares on oil business related tax collection, 3.1 trillion bolivares in current and extra incomes for profits and reimbursements, and 14.5 trillion bolivares for debt contraction.
What is most important for the majority of people is their capability to afford food and other basic necessities. According to the National Institute of Statistics, the monthly value of the official basic necessities list in October of 2004 was Bs.335,959.69, which represents a Bs.1,767.04 increase over the value of this list September. In total, the accumulated variation of the basic necessities list during the January-October period was 18.05%, a figure below that of 2003, which was 24.44%.
For citizens who earn below the official minimum wage (Bs.324,000), for the unemployed and for those who work in the informal economy, these variations are considerable when they affect their capacity to afford food, not to mention the rest of their basic necessities.
( This article was originally published in the No.43 issue of Quantum)
Venpres (Marlitza Matheus):
Health & Social Development (MSDS) Minister Francisco Armada says the National Executive has approved Bs.3 trillion for the financial year 2005. (Click here for the original Spanish text ). Part of the budget will be allocated to payrolls for Mision Barrio Adentro personnel, who will receive their paychecks from the state governments and municipalities in which they are operating.
Armada says the MSDS has multiple sources of financing at its disposal for Mision Barrio Adentro ... an advantage that will step up the process of setting up popular clinics in the areas of operations. The Ministry of Energy & Mines (MEM), along with Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), governorships and municipalities are the main sources of financing for Barrio Adentro.
The MSDS Minister stresses that progress has been made toward coordinating all the financing sources into a joint body so as to improve the distribution of resources for Barrio Adentro projects.
"This initiative will be progressive, but it will not happen overnight," Armada adds.
Cooperation among financial sources for Barrio Adentro has been an interesting experience ... once the National Health System is completed, consideration will be given as to its direction under a single institution that will take care of finances.
Translated by David Cabrera
En Espanol: Aprobados 3 billones de bolívares para el MSDS
Venpres (Marlitza Matheus): El Ejecutivo Nacional aprobó 3 billones de bolívares para el presupuesto del próximo año del Ministerio de Salud y Desarrollo Social (MSDS), informó la máxima autoridad de ese despacho, Francisco Armada.
Parte de ese presupuesto será destinado al pago del personal que labora para la Misión Barrio Adentro, aseguró el titular de la cartera de Salud.
Armada explicó que una parte de los recursos se otorgará directamente al personal que presta servicios en la Misión y otra se transferirá a los estados para que sean las gobernaciones y alcaldías las que se encarguen de cancelar al personal de Barrio Adentro.
Recalcó que el MSDS tiene múltiples fuentes de financiamiento para el funcionamiento de la Misión Barrio Adentro, lo que a su juicio ha permitido un avance extraordinario, sobre todo para el montaje del primer nivel de atención que incluye los consultorios populares.
=Estas múltiples fuentes de financiamiento incluyen actores nacionales y regionales entre los que se pueden mencionar al Ministerio de Energía y Minas, Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa), gobernaciones y alcaldías-, sostuvo.
Aseguró que en la actualidad se está trabajando para la integración de estas fuentes, lo que permitirá mayor efectividad a la hora del desembolso de los recursos. "Esta iniciativa será progresiva y no puede hacerse de un momento a otro", acotó.
Resaltó que ha sido una experiencia interesante la cooperación que hay por parte de todos estos actores para el financiamiento de la Misión.
Luego que culmine el proceso de construcción del Sistema Nacional de Salud se estudiará la posibilidad de dejar en manos de una sola institución el financiamiento de este programa bandera del Gobierno Nacional.