Venezuela offers SA a dire lesson in socialism at all costs - BizNews, 23 June 2017
By Sara Gon and Ian Cruickshanks
The chief prosecutor challenges the president’s right to do so, but the Supreme Court says on Twitter that it rejects the challenge as “inadmissible because it is an inept accumulation of pretensions”.
The inflation rate is estimated to be over 300%. Reliance on a single natural resource to support the economy has crashed with the fall in global prices for it. In January 2016, the scarcity rate of food was estimated at between 50% and 80%. Between 16 and 17 July, 2016, over 123,000 people crossed the border seeking food.
Many reports have appeared of desperate citizens rummaging through garbage for food. The movement of all food is controlled by the government. The military is hoarding food and then charging exorbitant prices for it. Currently, a basket of basic grocery items costs nearly four times the monthly minimum wage. Foreign debt is worth six years of exports.
Water and electricity is being rationed. The shortage of medical supplies is so high that the United Nations has been asked for assistance. Thirty percent of children are malnourished. In 2016, the average citizen lost nearly 9 kilograms in weight.
The country, according to some estimates, now has the highest murder rate in the world. Welcome to Venezuela.
The South African Communist Party proclaims that “socialism is the future”, and the African National Congress is proclaiming that the Second Stage of the National Democratic Revolution is in progress towards a socialist state.
We can see the future, and it doesn’t work – it is Venezuela.
*Sara Gon is Policy Fellow and Ian Cruickshanks Chief Economist at the Institute of Race Relations, a think-tank that promotes political and economic freedom.
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