Chavez Warns Army Will
Take Control Of Businesses That Increase
Prices
CARACAS - Venezuela’s President, Hugo
Chavez, has said troops will seize control
of any business that increases prices in
response to the devaluation of its currency.
Speaking on his weekly Sunday television
program, "Alo Presidente," Chavez railed
against merchants who re-price their items
in reaction to Friday's announcement that
the Venezuelan Bolivar currency, which had
been fixed at 2.15 to the US dollar since
2005, was devalued to 4.3 to the dollar.
For food and medicine, Chavez announced a
second fixed exchange rate for these
"necessity" goods at 2.6 Bolivar to the
dollar.
He said there was no reason for prices to go
up, and speculators' businesses would be
handed over to the workers. Venezuelans have
rushed to the shops to buy imported goods
before the Bolivar's devaluation comes into
effect.
"I want the national guard in the streets,
with the people, to fight speculation,"
Chavez said, calling re-pricing a form of
robbery.
Chavez says devaluing the Bolivar by at
least 17% will boost competitiveness and
reduce dependence on imports. But critics
say it will fuel inflation, which has
already risen to 25%.
Oscar Meza, director of the Venezuelan
economic think tank, Cendas, predicted the
move would push annual inflation above 33%.
During his weekly Sunday program Chavez
showed a photograph in a newspaper of
consumers in long lines over the weekend to
buy goods, fearing that the sharp
devaluation could result in higher prices.
The president blamed such lines on "tele-terror,"
saying that opposition media outlets were
fueling a panic.
"At this moment, there is absolutely no
reason for anyone to raise the prices of
anything," Chavez said.
He encouraged people to publicly denounce
businesses where prices increase and
threatened to expropriate businesses that
do.
He urged his supporters to "publicly
denounce the speculator" and warned business
owners that he had asked the military to
formulate an "offensive plan" that would see
them "take over any business, of any size,
that plays the bourgeois speculation game".
Luis Ignacio Planas of the opposition Copei
party said the government was "acting like a
pickpocket, sticking its hands in the
pockets of Venezuelans, taking their money
to continue financing and paying for an
irresponsible economic policy".
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