(Did you see the President finally noticed us after ten years? Yes, I was starting to think the billboards were hiding us from view)
A Caracas councilman by the name of Alejandro Vivas has been keeping tabs on the housing promise of the Chavez Government and enumerated them in the radio the other day:
1.) 2000: Plan Bolívar 2000. Military-Civilian plan to build low income housing. It was the first big corruption scandal of the Chavez era. Remember General Weffer?
2.) 2004: Misión Hábitat: US$ 200 million to change the model of housing and build 10,000 units in 2004 and 50 to thousand in 2005 with an additional US$ 500 million. Wondered what happened…
3.) 2006: Fundation Misión Hábitat.
4.) 2007: Misión Villanueva: A program to redistribute the population over space, so that we are better distributed and people live better.
5.) 2008: Misión 13 de Abril: Building of Socialist Communities in 40 locations of the country.
6.) 2009: Misión Barrio Nuevo Barrio Tricolor . “Dignification” of existing housing
7.) 2010: Russian Plan. US$ 500 million from the money not spent the previous year. 55 Hectareas in Fuerte Tiuna,
8.) 2011 Plan Vivienda Viva.
And counting….
The Devil's Excrement 
April 3, 2011 at 5:27 am
“It was never about them getting more….it was about everyone living at their level. (Here I’m talking about the true believers.) And this explains why they aren’t up in arms over the lack of progress/development. They simply don’t care about it.”
1000 thumbs up.
April 2, 2011 at 11:55 am
It is out of the subject of the post, but very true and sad, see the Rayma’s cartoon today in universal.com:
“The doctor explaining the problem to a patient:
I am sorry but you need: the vaccines that were given to Bolivia, The catheter that was given to Uruguay and the syringes that were donated to Argentina.”
April 2, 2011 at 11:01 am
albionboy gets it – metodex and loroferoz, apparently not so much.
For Chavez every problem is yet another excuse to grab more power. As to why the pueblo enjoys the lullaby it’s this: They are getting what they really wanted – EVERYONE brought down to their level. It was never about them getting more….it was about everyone living at their level. (Here I’m talking about the true believers.) And this explains why they aren’t up in arms over the lack of progress/development. They simply don’t care about it.
April 1, 2011 at 4:22 pm
All the problems in Venezuela, are nothing to Chavez because they all
empower him.
1. Shortage of food? excuse to control land, food production and distribution.
2. Housing shortage? grab private land, and curtail property rights.
3. Power shortages? keeps the small business owners (read middle class) under threat of having their electricity cut off(read miss use) if they support the opposition too openly.
4. No access to dollars? only if you support Chavez.
5. Inflation? Chavez prints Bs (read paper)so thats OK for him.
6. Crime? an unofficial curfew, keeps people of the street (read not conspiring against him)and in their homes after dark.
So Chavez sees everything as great, for him.
April 1, 2011 at 2:39 pm
I wonder how much money has been spent???
April 1, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Thugo Chavez has a dream and some POOR Venezuelans are still waiting for that dream to come true even after 11 LONG years.
April 1, 2011 at 10:06 am
“It’s a lullaby that keeps them not asleep, but in some weird trance that makes em think everything is better,that they really have power over their lives,that they chavez is a messiah, and that everyone wealthier than them is guilty of making them poor. ”
Then, some day, they are going to fall down hard, end up with two handfuls (and a faceful) of DUST! Then we will have some millions of already violent morons with a sky high sense of entitlement coupled to NO WILL or SKILL to EARN that, and nothing in their hands. I shudder at the consequences for them. The Caracazo will look like a firecracker going off.
April 1, 2011 at 9:07 am
I’m worried about how people,after 12 years, settle with just being mentioned on “cadena”.
You can still have your rancho,and dodge bullets. But if Chavez mentions you in cadena saying “EL PUEBLO PARRIBA! VENCEREMOS LOS POBRES CONMIGO PATRIA O MUERTE VENCEREMOS” it’s all ok. It’s a lullaby that keeps them not asleep, but in some weird trance that makes em think everything is better,that they really have power over their lives,that they chavez is a messiah, and that everyone wealthier than them is guilty of making them poor.
This is worrying,and has not been addressed properly.
I still want to see the opposition going to these parts of the country,and construct something,doing it WELL. Lies and manipulation gets you very far
April 1, 2011 at 9:04 am
everyday is April Fools Day in Venz
April 1, 2011 at 5:28 am
Great economic news from Venezuela today! Ali Rodriquez informs us that the electrical shortages are due to the 5% growth in the economy. Wow. Now I understand. Good thing the economy didn’t grow 10% or all the lights would be out in Venezuela 🙂
April 1, 2011 at 5:19 am
I mean, “Let’s NOT forget.”
(My kingdom for an edit button here.)
April 1, 2011 at 5:18 am
Let’s now forget the 5 hectares of rural land that Chavez gave my brother-in-law 11 years ago as part of his glorious agrarian project–a banker who wasn’t exactly an expert in farming.
I think he managed to grow two tomatoes in 2002, but they both died and rotted before ripening.
So if you experience food shortages in VZ, don’t blame Chavez–blame him.
April 1, 2011 at 3:58 am
Miguel,
Interesting list. Still, it needs expanding. Perhaps I will try to find the names of those things in Google and add sources from the media back then.
I see the Belorussian housing projects missing.
It would be interesting if someone living in Aragua could notify us about how far the 5000 flats we started to pay for in 2008 have been completed.
According to Hugo I Belarus was going to build 5000 flats then and according to last year’s agreement, 4000 (which, we assume, are different ones)
March 31, 2011 at 10:24 pm
When it gets to number nine, we can call it the “Noveno Plan de la Construcción”.
Plan Nine from Outer Space is already copyrighted, though. Ed Wood and chavismo…. closer than you think.
March 31, 2011 at 8:39 pm
A house in the tropics is perhaps the cheapest part of the program. Each needs electricity, water, sewers, roads, police and fire services and of course trash collection. Of course the monthly costs must be paid by the new home owner or in the case of public housing by the PDVSA drilling fund. If not all you have is a new Rancho!
March 31, 2011 at 8:01 pm
The fault with popular democracy is that the majority will always vote for whoever promises them the most largesse from the public treasury. That hasn’t changed over the past 2300 years.
March 31, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Chavez is a liar and has surrounded himself with incompetents. Unfortunately due to the human species not evolving sufficiently many support him because all they want to hear are promises. Chavez’s genetic line peaked long ago and never attained intellectual status.
Chavez is nothing more than a traitor to the people of Venezuela and at this he has excelled.
March 31, 2011 at 6:46 pm
The numbers show that housing units constructed per 1,000 inhabitants per year during the time that Chávez has been in power are less than half of what was being constructed in the decade before 1999.
Castles made of sand….
March 31, 2011 at 5:47 pm
At least we can expect the same effectiveness of the new milicias program.
March 31, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Idea for a new law:
Every six months or so, every person holding public office, be it by election or assignment, must publish a list of his goals for the next 6 months. And they must be objectively defined goals (e.g., building 20.000 houses), not subjective ones (e.g., “I will bring happiness to everyone”).
After the six months have passed, they will be evaluated. If they didn’t accomplish at least 80% of their goals, they immediately lose their position and are barred from holding any public office for 5 years.
Of course, there’s no politician in the world who would support a law like that, but we can dream, can’t we?
March 31, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Everything that is announced by this Government is pure show and theatre.
Slightly OTT : Regarding the cortes de luz that have started again this week, I have a neighbour who works at El Guri who has been called in on emergency as only 2 of the 15 maquinas are now working and it is going to cause constant rationing all over the country, until when who knows. They just need to keep Caracas con luz. So we are back to where we were 1 year ago. Nothing solved! The drought was a convenient excuse. Don’t expect them to spend any money on their own country though – Chavez would rather give money to universities in Uruguay.
March 31, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Hugo Chavez : promises :: Elizabeth Taylor : marriage. Love it.
March 31, 2011 at 3:29 pm
CarlosElio – reading your post I just had one name coming up to my mind: Elizabeth Taylor!
After the fifth or so marriage, nobody really believed her stories anymore (well, maybe Richard Burton did).
Very good analogy.
March 31, 2011 at 2:57 pm
At the wedding ceremony, when things begin, everybody smiles, the air is pregnant with good wishes, people celebrate. At the marriage counselor office the air is full of recriminations, the tally counts all the disappointments and the broken promises.
Announcing a new mission, a new program, is analogous to the wedding ceremony. To be accountable for money spent is analogous to a visit to the marriage counselor’s office or, worse yet, to the lawyer’s.
A weasel like chavez will prefer a new wedding ceremony because it allows him to abscond his gigantic failures under the bubbles of the champagne, and he will maneuver to avoid going to the marriage counselor.
The task of a serious opposition is to play the role of the plaintiff and make a powerful case in the court of public opinion. I am glad that a councilman, Alejandro Vivas, keeps tabs; but I am saddened by the fact that the opposition shies away from its responsibilities to the nation.