Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro ruled out this Monday increasing the minimum wage equivalent to 5.25 dollars (24,000 Colombian pesos), the lowest in Latin America, but announced monthly “war” bonuses of $60.
“I have been working out how to improve income over the course of these months until we can have financial strength and give a definitive blow to the recovery of the salary of the Venezuelan worker,” said Maduro, whowho calls himself the “worker president”, and He blames the sanctions against his government for the crisis the country is going through.
In Venezuela, although inflation in March of this year fell and stood at 4.2%, according to the Venezuelan Finance Observatory (OVF), the annual inflation rate continues through the roof and reached 501%.
The president led a demonstration for May 1 in downtown Caracas, where earlier opponents also demonstrated against what they called “indigence wages”.
is practically null
that goes in passage
“We must take the Cestaticket (food bonus) much higher and balance these 60 dollars. Bring the Cestaticket to 40 dollars a month, and the war bonus to 20, 60 rounded dollars as a minimum, in addition to the salary,” the president continued from a big stage surrounded by ministers and leaders of Chavismo.
“It is an income resistance plan that should lead us sooner rather than later to the salar recoveryio”.
(Also: Summit in Bogotá was not a victory for Maduro, says Venezuelan opposition)
The increase does not go against social benefits. It is not clear if this decree will cover hundreds of thousands of retirees of the public administration and Social Security pensioners, who today do not receive the food ticket.
“You can be very revolutionary, but you can’t fall for lies,” Julio Manrique, a public employee, told AFP at the end of the march, which was attended by thousands of people.
The increase “is practically nil, that goes away,” added this man who has a small store in his house to make ends meet. “You can’t buy shoes, you can’t afford to buy clothes.”
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Increases that are lost to inflation
Maduro decreed the last salary increase in March 2022, when it went from 7 to 130 bolivars. At that time it was equivalent to a little less than 30 dollars, but since then the Venezuelan currency has devalued 82%.
The president clarified that the $60 in bonuses will in fact be indexed to the official exchange rate.
I would like to have the resources to do more, we are doing more
with less
In any case, it is far from the 510 dollars that the food basket costs, according to private estimates in this country thatcumulative year-on-year inflation of 501%, according to the Venezuelan Finance Observatory, a reference given the lack of official figures.
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“I wish I had the resources to do more, we are doing more with less“Maduro insisted. Venezuela has been plunged into a deep economic crisis for a decade, aggravated by the sanctions that sought the fall of Maduro, which include an oil embargo.
“It’s a blow a disbursement to the coffers of the Stateor,” economist César Aristimuño explained to AFP. “He will look for a way to obtain that from oil income and will not put the Central Bank to print.” “This does not affect the private sector mainly, because (the average salary) is very above this,” he added.
As President Pueblo, I am committed to the Venezuelan working class, to the prosperity and future of our Homeland. I do not have doubts. We and we will win! pic.twitter.com/kCnV4yHOVw
— Nicolas Maduro (@NicolasMaduro) May 2, 2023
Oil for benefits and protests against ‘poor wages’
Maduro indicated for his part that he approved the delivery of 50 oil wells to the social benefit fund so that they assume the total of the sale of that crude in the international market.
“Now they are producing 9,500 barrels per day but it is going to produce 20,000 barrels per day and we are going to deliver this bunch (the 50 wells) to the national fund for social benefits for workers so that all the oil produced there can be sold. and that money is for the social benefits of Venezuelan workers,” he said.
(You can read: Juan Guaidó: ‘From Venezuela I left for Colombia as a politically persecuted’)
Earlier, some 1,500 Venezuelan workers, between active and retired from the public administrationthey protested against the “indigence wages” they receive.
“We don’t live, we survive,” Dary Romero, 50, a hospital nurse where she earns 160 bolivars, told AFP.
“The salary goes away in the (bus) ticket, but we work with a great dedication to service (…). On weekends I dedicate myself to being an entrepreneur and selling hot dogswith that he helped me and banded my basic needs“, Explain.
AFP
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