Venezuela Launches Electronic Rationing Card

Restrictions on the sale of 20 basic items including toilet paper and chicken, are set to begin next week in Venezuela

By JG Vibes

Venezuela’s most populated state is scheduled to begin a system of rationing, with consumers in Western Zulia being given electronic cards to limit their purchases of items such as rice, cooking oil and toilet paper.
“Considering the average size of a family, one person should only buy 20 staple products during the period that we establish, which we think will be one week,” Blagdimir Labrador, an official with the Zulia state government, told the newspaper Panorama in an interview published on Tuesday.
The shortages of everyday necessities across the country are being blamed on the government’s attempts to control the economy.
Al Jazeera’s Adam Raney reports from Caracas:

An economist at Andres Bello University, Ronald Balza, said he doesn’t see how rationing certain foodstuffs can address the true cause of shortages.
“The reason for shortages (in Zulia) is the same as it is in the rest of the country: fixed prices, supply problems and the preventative purchases that consumers make every time new (higher) prices are coming.”
“We cannot allow the government to use our state to create a Cuba-style rationing system,” said opposition legislator Elias Matta of Zulia. “This shows the failure of 21st century socialism.”
 

Sources:

^http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/04/us-venezuela-shortages-idUSBRE9530V520130604