Venezuelan president to Congress: Our economic policies have failed, comrades
1 min
Speaking to the Congress of Venezuela’s ruling United Socialist Party on Monday, President Nicollás Maduro admitted that his economic agenda isn’t working out like he had planned.
What did he say?
“The production models we’ve tried so far have failed and the responsibility is ours, mine and yours,” Maduro told lawmakers, the Agence France-Presse reported. “Enough with the whining … we need to produce with or without (outside) aggression, with or without blockades, we need to make Venezuela an economic power.”
“No more whining,” he scolded. “I want solutions comrades!”
Venezuela has repeatedly blamed its financial woes on sanctions imposed by the U.S. But Maduro told his ministers that it was time to take responsibility as a country.
“The imperialism assaults us? Enough of the whining. … You will not see me whining to myself,” he said. “I do not blame them anymore. You do not see me whining in front of imperialism. Let them attack us. It is up to us whether to act with aggression or without aggression.”
Despite Maduro’s admission that his socialist measures have not been successful, he expressed hope that his agenda would eventually turn the economy around.
“I estimate it will take about two years to reach a high level of stability,” he added, “and see the first symptoms of new and economic prosperity, without for one second affecting social security and protection.”
Where’d this come from?
The social government in Venezuela has taken a number of failed measures in attempting to pull the country out of a four-year recession.
In the past five years, it has taken over and nationalized entire industries such as steel and cement, used its army to try and control street markets, and employed a number of attempts at currency manipulation.
But the measures have backfired — resulting in an inflation crisis that the International Monetary Fund predicts will reach 1,000,000 percent in the country this year.
With the largest oil reserves in the world, Venezuela’s crude sales account to roughly 96 percent of the nation’s revenue. But the industry has deteriorated so much since the government took over, that the country has even considered importing oil to refine in an attempt to fulfill the contracts of the state-run oil company PDVSA
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