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| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Venezuela: military trafficking food |
| 2016-12-29 |
| The late President Hugo Chavez created a Food Ministry in 2004. His socialist government nationalized and then neglected farms and factories, and domestic production dried up. When the price of oil collapsed in 2014, the government no longer could afford to import all the country needed. Hungry Venezuelans began rioting, and so Maduro handed the generals complete power over food. The government now imports nearly all the country’s food, and corruption drives prices sky-high. With much of the oil country on the verge of starvation and malnourished children dying in pediatric wards, food trafficking has become big business in Venezuela. And the military is at the heart of the graft, according to documents and interviews with more than 60 officials, company owners and workers, including five former generals. One South American businessman says he paid millions in kickbacks to Venezuelan officials as the hunger crisis worsened, including $8 million to people who work for the food minister, Gen. Rodolfo Marco Torres. The businessman insisted on speaking anonymously because he did not want to acknowledge participating in corruption. He explained that vendors like him can afford to pay off officials because they build large profit margins into what they bill the state. The socialist administration says it takes graft seriously. “The state has an obligation to root out corruption in all levels of public administration,” the defense minister, Gen. Vladimir Padrino Lopez, said this fall. And yet dirty dealing persists from the port to the markets, according to dozens of people working in Puerto Cabello, which handles the majority of imported food. Officials sometimes keep ships waiting at sea until they are paid off, according to a stevedore who spoke anonymously because he feared losing his job. After the cargo is unloaded, customs officials take their cut, refusing to even start the process of nationalizing goods without a payment, four customs workers said. The corruption doesn’t stop once cargo leaves the port, according to truck drivers. The military has set up checkpoints along highways to catch food traffickers, and truck drivers say they have to pay bribes at about half of them. At the end of the food chain, some soldiers partake in selling food directly to citizens, according to business owners. Bakery owner Jose Ferreira cuts two checks for each purchase of sugar: one for the official price of 2 cents a pound and one for the kickback of 60 cents a pound. He keeps copies of both checks in his books in case he is ever audited. In large part due to concerns of graft, the three largest global food traders, all based in the U.S., have stopped selling directly to the Venezuelan government. The U.S. government has taken notice. Prosecutors have opened investigations against senior Venezuelan officials for laundering riches from food contracts through the U.S. financial system, according to several people with direct knowledge of the probes. No charges have been brought. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #2 Mrs. Thatcher to the white courtesy phone.....Mrs. Thatcher |
| Posted by: AlanC 2016-12-29 08:06 |
| #1 you can't eat money or oil......... |
| Posted by: 746 2016-12-29 00:49 |