CARACAS (Reuters) – President Nicolas Maduro’s government said yesterday it had taken over warehouses around Venezuela crammed with medical goods and food that “bourgeois criminals” were hoarding for speculation and contraband.
The socialist government says businessmen and wealthy opponents are trying to sabotage the economy to bring Maduro down, while also seeking to make profits from hoarding, price-gouging and smuggling across the border to Colombia.
Critics say 15 years of failed policies of state intervention are to blame for the OPEC nation’s widespread shortages, high inflation and apparently recessionary economy. They accuse nouveau riche officials and military officers of illegal business practices.
Maduro gave a live address to the nation from one of two warehouses seized in central Aragua state, where he said 14 million syringes and 2 million surgical gloves were among a massive hoard of medical equipment bound for Colombia.
“There’s enough medical equipment here to cover Aragua’s needs for a year. This is the criminal bourgeoisie. They are going to pay with jail, I swear it,” Maduro said, standing in front of piles of boxes and wheelchairs.
“The bourgeois parasites are hurting the people’s health.”
Maduro, the 51-year-old successor to the late Hugo Chavez who died of cancer last year, said the goods had been bought with dollars obtained from the state’s foreign exchange board and were due to be sold across the border in Colombia.
