They call them bachaqueros. Venezuela’s army of black market shoppers descend every day at dawn outside Caracas’s biggest stores. Named after the bachaco leaf-cutting ant that carries several times its weight, the men and women queue alongside hundreds of other Venezuelans for food, nappies, milk and other basic goods. They stand for hours in the blistering heat, motivated not by hunger, but profit. Half-empty shelves in most shops means goods bought at government-controlled prices can be sold at a significant mark-up.........Chávez wanted to create a socialist paradise, an ideology that has been reinforced by his successor Maduro following his death in 2013. But the oil price collapse a year later served as a wake-up call for a country that chose profligacy over prudence in the hope that a rainy day would never come. Oil accounts for 98pc of total exports and 59pc of fiscal revenues, but Moya-Ocampos says the price slide isn’t the country’s only problem.......To Read More.....
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