…but it isn’t.
Last month I wrote this article about what I considered the next steps for the now opposition led National Assembly in Venezuela should take in order to subvert the crisis the country is in. So far, none of my ideas have been implemented or even been considered.
Today I came across this very interesting article, that captures in one sentence, the constant affirmation what every Venezuelan knows and constantly preaches: Properly managed, Venezuela should be a very rich country. The thing is, it isn’t, which begs to ask the of question “why”, which brings a very simple answer: “Because it’s run the wrong way.”
Most of Venezuela’s middle class -who is composed by opposition followers- blame previously Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro’s government’s strict and somewhat questionable policies in all aspects of society, including economic, political and legal country affairs. While a case can be made to attest the opposition claims, a broader picture of how Venezuela’s society is functioning must also be considered.
I was having lunch with a friend yesterday in a restaurant located in an upscale mall in Caracas and after finishing our meals, we decided to go for a relaxing walk that eventually took us to the most visited place any Venezuelan goes to on their daily routine: a supermarket. Once inside, we noticed that a shipment of several packages of flour had just made its way into the store. Seeing the opportunity, we grabbed our corresponding allowed two packages of flour (1 kg each) which is the maximum a shopper can purchase during a week. In general, all Venezuelan supermarkets have regulatory controls implemented by the government that only allow shoppers to purchase a maximum number of goods during a seven day period. In the case of flour, one can buy two packages, each one costing two cents of a dollar. Yes, your read right: $0.02. Prices of other regulated products such as milk, sugar, vegetable oil, ketchup, pasta, are also around the single digit dollar cent value. The catch of course is, that unless you catch an extremely lucky break like my friend and I did where you happen to be in the store at the same time the goods arrived, you will be forced to endure hours of long waiting in endless lines as people flood the stores by the thousands to get their hands on their groceries at very cheap prices.
Luck is an extremely important factor when going grocery shopping in Venezuela, because unless you have an insider tip from someone working in the supply-chain distribution, there is no way for you to know when there will be stock of what you need. This is why supermarkets in Venezuela are normally deserted. On this particular day however, after grabbing our two packages of flour, we ended up spending over an hour at the store, because it took us fifty minutes to checkout and pay. Yes, you read it right: two minutes to shop and fifty minutes to checkout. In other words, one could say:
“Run the right way, a Supermarket checkout should take no longer than five minutes.” But in Venezuela, it doesn’t… because the supermarket is run the wrong way, and if you stand in a Venezuelan’s supermarket checkout line for fifty minutes, you will understand part of Venezuela’s ongoing crisis. In other words, you will be able to understand why Venezuela should be a very rich country, but it isn’t. Keep in mind this is just one supermarket. There must be hundreds of supermarkets in the city; thousands in the country… each one run the wrong way.
Moving towards deregulation of these products would be the right course of action to end this madness, which is a decision that must come from the government, but if they can’t (or won’t) drop fixed prices and distribution controls on regulated products, there are many possible options that can be implemented to improve the checkout nightmare:
1. Have one (or more) cashier for non-regulated products: if a costumer is buying an $8 pasta sauce and a set of knives, they shouldn’t go through the same fate than those just buying regulated products.
2. Have one (or more) cashier for senior citizens: it’s inhuman to have a senior citizen standing up for fifty minutes, when all he wants to do is buy food.
3. Have one (or more) cashier with fast dial-up/high speed connectivity with bank lines: paying with credit/debit cards is supposed to be quicker than paying with cash, not slower.
4. Have one (or more) cashier for express or fast checkout/less than five products.
5. Ban cashiers from using their cellphones while at work if they have customers waiting in line (or ban them altogether).
6. Have one (or more) pre-checkout cashier, so a customer can already have their order taken care of and then they would only have to pay when they arrive at the cashier.
I hardly believe any of the major supermarket chains will lose a substantial amount of money, if they would decide to incorporate one or all of these suggestions.
I will wrap up this entry for now, as I have more material to cover for another post and in my book as well, where you will learn how other vital and primary core components of Venezuelan’s economy, are also run… the wrong way.
HR
