VenEconomy: Culpable Silence
From the Editors of VenEconomy
Latin American Herald Tribune
June 10, 2014

Without a doubt, Venezuela is going through the most serious economic crisis in its entire history: Unbearable shortages that extend to food products, medicines and all kinds of basic consumer goods and key inputs to the industry and agricultural sector of the country. The country is also falling short of foreign currency, making it harder to pay for imports and the debts every time. An inflation rate that may exceed 80% or more by the end of this year. The country no longer has access to credit; not even the one that China used to provide. The options that the country has so far are misery, hunger and pests; or maybe signing up for an IMF-style adjustment program.

Meanwhile, the Government and its submissive public institutions maintain a culpable silence with regard to the accountability and key information that both the Constitution and laws oblige them to inform the population about the nation’s today economic reality. A serious, unwise and negligent omission that should lead to legal responsibilities for the officials involved. But, in today’s Venezuela, this culpable silence also extends to the Office of the Comptroller, the Parliament and the judiciary system, institutions called on to be the guarantors of transparency in the management of the State and the compliance with laws and accountability, for they are all clung to the “revolutionary” process.

It is unforgivable, for example, the delay from the central bank since November of last year in releasing its monthly data on inflation and quarterly estimates of both the GDP and Balance of Payments. Therefore, nobody knows for sure what the inflation rate will be, or if the economy will contract and by how much; or if there will be enough foreign currency to meet the minimum requirements of the economy.

Hence the importance of a new statement from a group of 33 economists, released over the weekend, in which they demand the central bank, the Ministry of Finance and the National Institute of Statistics (INE) to come clean and release the economic data that remains hidden. Among other things, they pointed out that it is unacceptable the delayed publication of external accounts, of which nobody knows anything since the third quarter of 2013; as well as the information on the fiscal management of the Central Government and the consolidated public sector that has been omitted since 2011.

These economists are calling on the release of the inflation data in compliance with an agreement signed with the General Data Dissemination System of the United Nations and the central bank’s own internal regulations, which require the release of these figures within the first 10 days of the next month following the one that has ended. A little over a week since June started has passed and the Board of Directors of the central bank still has not published the inflation data for both April and May. The economists have noted that “Venezuela is the only country in the world where this variable has not been published yet.”

Also urgent is the release of the “scarcity index, which in a context of price controls, plays a fundamental role in the analysis and monitoring of the economy.” As much as those of “economic activity, Gross Domestic Product and Balance of Payments,” which had to be released by May 15 in accordance with the agreements signed with the UN and the central bank’s own policies.

The lack of accountability opens up the door to corruption, affecting citizens firsthand, on the one hand through the diversion of funds that should go to improvements in public services such as healthcare, education, housing, electricity, among others. And on the other, it affects the creation of new jobs since the productive sector does not have an accurate information on the economy and therefore cannot be developed to its fullest capacity, making impossible for it to do the right planning and properly calculate projections for future investments.

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