Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Thursday 24 May 2018

Migrant remittances a big business in cash-starved Venezuela

By CHRISTINE ARMARIO rency's value, analysts say
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Venezuela's current eco-
The giant metal pots in the nomic turmoil is driven by
kitchen of a drab Bogota poor government deci-
cafeteria are filled with sim- sions, such as issuing new
ple dishes like vegetable money much faster than
rice. But Edgary Granadil- there is anything available
lo's delicate arrangement to spend it on.
of the plates he sets before Venezuela imposed cur-
rushed lunchtime office rency controls in 2003
workers hints at the finer aimed at halting capital
dishes he once served. flight, but most economists
The former executive chef say they have actually
at a beach resort in Vene- been driving the current
zuela once commanded a financial crisis. Individuals
staff of 65 cooks and made and businesses must ap-
regular appearances on ply to receive dollars at
television cooking shows. the government-set official
Now he is laboring for $10 a rate to import goods and
day, with one sole aim: to cover other transactions.
send money back home. But except for the public
"The wages there aren't sector and a few privileged
enough," Granadillo, 30, insiders, most Venezuelans
said, his dark, somber eyes must turn to the black mar-
keeping a careful eye on a In this April 4, 2018 photo, Venezuelan chef Edgar Granadillo, center, lines up to send a remit- ket, where one dollar cur-
bubbling saucepan of fish tance to his family living in Venezuela, from Bogota, Colombia. rently fetches about 100
head soup. "People need Associated Press times more bolivars than at
to rely on a Venezuelan the official rate.
outside the country, who exchange houses and an- $74.3 billion — in some cas- pesos into the business' Using that rate, analysts
can send something, in or- nounced they would be es, contributing more than Colombian bank account say Venezuela's official ex-
der to survive." opening their own. 10 percent of a nation's and the exchange opera- change houses would nev-
As the number of Venezu- More than 100 people gross domestic product. tors transfer an equivalent er be able to compete.
elans fleeing their coun- linked to remittance busi- Venezuela historically had amount of bolivars from "We are a solution," said
try's deepening economic nesses have been de- been a receptor of mi- their own Venezuelan ac- Victor Aguirre, who re-
and humanitarian crisis tained in what officials dub grants, and thus a coun- count to that of the indi- paired roofs in Venezuela
climbs, a burgeoning life- "Operation Paper Hands." try people sent remit- cated relative. and opened an online ex-
line for those back home is They are accused of spec- tances from, but that has Ecoanalitica, a Venezu- change business with a
emerging — remittances. ulating on the value of the changed. elan financial consulting friend a few months after
Skirting strict currency con- bolivar by using the black- "The majority — 100 per- firm, estimates about $1.1 arriving in Colombia.
trols, dozens of transfer op- market exchange rate. cent, and if not 100 per- billion in remittances were A Panama-based man-
erations, mostly small-scale The board of directors of cent, more than 99 per- transferred to Venezuelans ager at Rapid Cambio,
businesses run by a hand- Venezuela's top private cent — of Venezuelans last year, a number ana- one of the businesses re-
ful of exiles entirely online, bank, which held many of who leave the country are lysts say could be higher cently blacklisted by the
have opened abroad to the remittance accounts, doing so in order to send given the difficulty in calcu- government, likened the
help emigres convert their was arrested as part of the money back to relatives," lating informal transactions. government's detentions
dollars and pesos into Ven- operation. said Yulia Torres, founder Even on the lower end, to a "witch hunt." Speaking
ezuelan bolivars that arrive Venezuela's chief prosecu- of an Instagram account that would mean upward on condition of anonymity
within minutes in a relative's tor, Tarek William Saab, has called "Venezuelans in Bo- of 4 million Venezuelans, or for fear of further reprisal,
Venezuelan bank account. warned that "new deten- gota" that has attracted around 15 percent of the he said he plans to open a
The remittances are big tion centers should be built more than 40,000 followers. population, receive help new business as soon as the
business. Independent ex- for this type of crime," which "They might not ask you for from abroad. "Increasingly dust settles.
perts estimate Venezuelans he said was causing "grave it, but they absolutely need middle class households Like many migrants, Grana-
now send at least $1 billion damage" to the nation's it," she said of relatives back need remittances in order dillo, the chef, makes bare-
a year to friends and family economy. He added that home. to survive," said Jean Paul ly enough money to cover
members that they've left while many of the business To keep their accounts Leidenz, a senior economist his daily expenses. But in
behind. operators might be work- flush with bolivars, money at Ecoanalitica. "But we one day of working in Bo-
That money is critical at a ing from outside the coun- changers must wade into cannot just depend on re- gota he earns as much as
time when Venezuela's min- try, avoiding arrest, officials Venezuela's murky black mittances for hard curren- he did in a month in Ven-
imum wage is now worth have identified accomplic- market, where they sell cy income. Because they ezuela.
less than $2 a month, and es within Venezuela. dollars held in accounts never enter the economy." The little he is able to send
the government of Presi- "They might be abroad abroad at 100 times the of- Maduro has repeatedly back doesn't go far, but
dent Nicolas Maduro, who playing with the pain of ficial rate, which only state accused Colombian Presi- his 62-year-old mother says
won a new six-year term Venezuelans, but we know agencies and privileged in- dent Juan Manuel Santos she would go hungry with-
Sunday in a contested vote who they work with," he siders have access to. of waging an economic out it.
many fear will spur even said. Most remittances sent At a typical transfer shop, war against Venezuela by On a recent afternoon,
more people to leave, is to Latin America come Venezuelans who operate allowing "mafias" to horde Ana Teresa Rondon used
taking note. Blaming the from migrants in the U.S., the business maintain per- large quantities of bolivars. the money Granadillo sent
operations for feeding de- who send money to Mexi- sonal bank accounts within While large stockpiles of back to purchase a few
valuation — and hoping co, Cuba and other nations Venezuela while opening bolivars have been found peppers, an avocado and
to snag a piece of the pie in Central America and the new ones in foreign curren- as far away as Paraguay, 3½ pounds of chicken that
— Venezuelan officials re- Caribbean. In 2016, those cies abroad. Migrants in Bo- suggesting networks are she said would need to last
cently shut down several money transfers valued gota, for example, deposit speculating on the cur- a month.q