VenEconomy: Time is Running Out for Venezuela From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune January 22, 2016
This is not the time for Nicolás Maduro and his government team to keep playing "eenie, meenie, miny, moe." Yes, that old kiddie counting-out game.
And this is not the time, because the country is experiencing an unprecedented collapse: 1) An economy in recession for seven straight quarters, from the first quarter of 2014, as reported by the own central bank last week. 2) Some gross international reserves standing at $15.57 billion through January 20, down $799 million (4.9%) from the closing of 2015 and $14.32 billion (47.9%) from the closing of 2012. Reserves that are not enough to cover two weeks of imports. 3) A Monetary Liquidity (M2) that for January 15 was at Bs.4.02 billion, up Bs.2.0 billion (101.1%) from the last 12 months vs. Bs.1.2 trillion in 2012. This corroborates the erratic monetary policy of the central bank to finance the fiscal deficit and other government expenditure with inorganic money. 4) With an inflation rate that, according to the IMF, hovered around 270% in 2015 and is projected to shoot higher than 500% in 2016. 5) Shortages of capital goods, food and medicines above 80%. And 6) Falling oil prices at an average of just $21.63 per barrel in the week ended January 22, thus quickly approaching to its production cost which, according to Elogio Del Pino, president of state-owned oil company PDVSA, is $18 per barrel.
These numbers indicate that Venezuela is sitting right over a powder keg threatening to explode at any time and lead Venezuelans to an unprecedented famine and state of emergency.
However, Maduro, in his latest public appearances, with his recent cabinet reshuffle, the creation of a National Council of Productive Economy (a complete nonsense without logic or clear objectives), and his Economic Emergency Decree, is still resorting to the old “eeny meeny miny moe” to pass the blame for his failure on others.
Maduro resorted to this Economic Emergency Decree as a master move to evade his non-transferable responsibility to govern and to create a means of transfer of political cost so that the Legislature gets the blame for having been a co-decision maker on the failed economic plan of the Executive.
If the Parliament had approved it, the Government would have made it "co-responsible" for the disaster coming. And, by rejecting it, the Government would have insisted that the Parliament tied its hands, the reason for which the Parliament was to blame all this time.
A very clever move, if the masquerade was not so easy to expose: Why does Maduro need some extra enabling powers if he could have avoided all this emergency situation by having used the four enabling legislations granted during his three years of government by the parliamentary bloc of the ruling party PSUV with reasoning, intelligence and vision of the country? One of them, the third of his presidential term (November 19 2013-November 19 2014), gave him full freedom for 12 months to address the so-called "economic war" without the Parliament being involved.
But all this backfired on the Government after the ministers of the economic area did not show before the Parliament to testify on the economic activity on Thursday, because the procedure was public and to be broadcast by the national media.
With its defiance, the Government revealed that the situation of the country is so serious that the "political cost" to report on the situation was greater than not to attend the questioning procedure by the members of the Parliament. It was exposed and now there is no way it can "blame" the opposition for the present crisis.
What remains to be seen is the next move of Maduro to come out unscathed. Time is running out, and the country clamors for solutions.
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