Consumers create artificial shortage in Venezuela

'The consumer is purchasing and creating an artificial food shortage,' some of them prevent the lack of some food items and others because 'have found and extraordinary business in speculation of basic food items,' the President of the Federation of Chambers and Associations of Artisans, Micro, Small & Medium Industries (Fedeindustria, by its Spanish acronym), Miguel Pérez Abad, explained.

In the TV show Dando y Dando, broadcast in the state-run TV station Venezolana de Televisión, Pérez Abad said that there are errors in some items' production network that become in tools for speculation.

'There are several aspects that nobody says. For example, the increase of food supply in the country and the important measures taken to solve the conflict. But, we also have to say that the consumers have to help. They have to purchase the products that they really need. There are a lot of people who store milk in their houses that they do not need.'

According to Pérez Abad, some irregularities have been detected in Mercal supermarkets where 'the people can buy just two kg. of milk; however, some people send 30 people to buy the product and they resell the food in higher prices in the popular zones,' it must be investigated and controlled by the authorities.