Washington DC, July 26: The United States authorities have blamed embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his partners of benefitting from a food subsidy programme as the nation suffers acute food deficiencies.
For many years, a “vast corruption network” profited from exaggerated contracts while just a small amount of the nourishment for the state-run scheme was imported, the US department of treasury officials said.
It forced sanctions over 10 individuals, including Mr. Maduro’s three stepsons. Mr Maduro called the measures a sign of “desperation” by “the gringo empire”, according to BBC.
Oil-rich Venezuela has confronted chronic deficiencies of medicine and food because of the years-long financial and political emergency, and an enormous number of individuals say they don’t get access to enough food and medicine.
The Local Committees for Supply and Production programme, known by its Spanish acronym Clap, was made by the Maduro-led government in 2016 to appropriate food boxes at subsidized costs.
Colombian national Alex Nain Saab ran a system that acquired no-offer, overvalued contracts from the Venezuelan government, including from the nourishment program, the US treasury said.
In a press release, the US treasury department wrote: ” Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Colombian national Alex Nain Saab Moran (Saab), a profiteer orchestrating a vast corruption network that has enabled former President Nicolás Maduro (Maduro) and his regime to significantly profit from food imports and distribution in Venezuela.”
“Alex Saab engaged with Maduro insiders to run a wide-scale corruption network they callously used to exploit Venezuela’s starving population,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
“[Authorities] use food as a form of social control, to reward political supporters and punish opponents, all the while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars through a number of fraudulent schemes.”
It added that they use food as a form of social control, to reward political supporters and punish opponents, all the while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars through a number of fraudulent schemes.
Mr. Maduro, who is already under US sanctions, said on state television: “Imperialists, prepare for more defeats, because the Clap in Venezuela will continue… No-one takes the Clap away from the people.