Venezuelan President Creates National Public Works Company
San Francisco, August 26th 2011 (Venezuelanalaysis.com) – On Thursday Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced the creation of the country’s National Public Works Company, a new government institution aimed at managing and maintaining all publicly-owned construction equipment. Construction brigades, organized by communal councils and other community-based entities, are to operate and maintain the over 6,000 construction equipment that now belongs to the newly-created public works company.
Speaking live on national television and radio yesterday, Chavez announced the birth of the new public institution and explained that it will help carry out, supervise, and control the thousands of housing development projects currently underway in Venezuela as part of the government’s “Grand Mission Housing Venezuela.”
Building affordable homes has become a top priority for the Venezuelan government since torrential rains last year left thousands of people homeless. The new mass housing “mission” aims to build some 2 million homes in the next seven years.
According to Minister of Housing and Habitat, Ricardo Molina, some 360,000 homes are currently being constructed nationwide.
In total, some 4,243 housing projects are underway in the country and an additional 3,685 projects are to begin next year. These figures include public, private, and mixed (public-private) housing construction efforts.
The government’s goal is to complete and hand over to families a total 319,820 homes by the end of 2012.
“Let’s not waste another second,” said Chavez yesterday, “let’s sign this decree and create the National Public Works Company…one more element in the national strategic design, the Simon Bolivar National Project which is found in our Constitution.”
The president went on to explain that the new public entity is set to participate in all public works efforts and is expected to play a role in the production, importation, and distribution of construction equipment as well.
To begin operations, Chavez issued the company 100 million bolivars ($US 23 million).
Publicly-Owned and Operated Construction Equipment
As reported by Correo del Orinoco, the Venezuelan government recently purchased 6,025 pieces of construction equipment from China, all of which are to be owned and operated by the new public works entity.
The equipment purchased includes bulldozers, graders, pneumatic compacters, and excavating equipment, among other heavy machinery used in housing and infrastructure construction.
While the exact amount spent on the equipment has yet to be made public, the Chinese government recently made an historic loan of US$ 20 billion dollars to support Venezuela’s efforts at improving infrastructure, agriculture, energy, oil, steel, and gas projects in the country.
“This is a huge injection of resources, of constant capital at the service of labor, and it strengthens the country in terms of national power, power of the state and power of the people,” said Chavez on Thursday.
According to Venezuela’s Minister of Housing and Habitat, Ricardo Molina, the renting of construction equipment from private owners “was limiting” government efforts to advance public works efforts.
“To rent one of these machines one must pay the private sector anywhere between 3 and 5 thousand bolivars ($US 700 to 1,150) per day, which amounts to a huge expense that we can now save,” explained Molina.
The housing minister also affirmed that “public ownership” of the over 6,000 pieces of construction equipment purchased from China allows the Venezuela government and people to “plan and decide where to send the machines, control their maintenance as well as performance and ensure the greatest possible lifespan” for each machine.
Molina said the new institution “is a key piece of the puzzle” in the government’s attempt to meet people’s housing needs.
Molina also explained the people’s power organizations, including communal councils, popular housing committees, and workers’ councils are currently setting up “construction brigades” that will receive technical training for the use and maintenance of specific machinery.
People’s power organizations have begun forming “state- and region-based units that can go directly to construction sites, help with operating and permanent maintenance of machinery,” explained Molina.
In a symbolic showing of the newly-purchased equipment, 210 pieces were displayed along the Paseo de los Proceres in Caracas yesterday. Some 600 trained “brigade members” were on hand to accompany the construction equipment, including graduates of the Ribas Mission, communal councils, and workers from the state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).
ZNet Articles
Promises of affordable housing for all fail
By Tatsuo, Miyachi at Aug 29, 2011 10:14 AM
From Guardian weekly29/8
Promises of affordable housing for all fail to materialise in bricks and mortar
Venezuela diary
Marie Delcas
The determination of Venezuela under the presidency of Hugo Chávez to push through a Bolivarian- style revolution means the government has plenty on its plate. The Vivienda (housing) part of its ambitious social policy aims to build 2m homes for those on a low incomes by 2017. Op- position parties have condemned this move as an electoral ploy in the run-up to next year’s election, in which Chávez plans to run for a fourth term, health permitting. The housing initiative aims to build 153,000 homes this year and another 200,000 in 2012. At the beginning of July, the oil and energy minister Rafael Ramirez reported that 16,964 units had been completed in the first six months of 2011.
The Sambil Candelaria in Caracas was supposed to become yet another massive shopping mall. But at the end of 2008 Chávez expropriated the structure. Since last December it has housed some 2,300 people made homeless during that year’s rainy season. “We are leaving soon,” says Isaura Sanchez, a mother of four. “My commander will find eve- ryone homes. We saw them on TV and they’re almost ready,” she adds. About 100,000 families are in urgent need of housing and they are pinning their hopes on the Vivienda initiative.
Caracas is ringed by barrios, or shanty towns built of breeze block and corrugated iron, and served by narrow alleys and steep stairways. The poor in Venezuela are no better off than their neighbours elsewhere in Latin America. Population growth and failures by successive govern- ments have led housing shortages.
The present government has made housing a priority, but haphazard policies have hampered
Ideology doesn’t make bricks ... shortages mean Caracas’s shanty towns will exist for many years Jorge Silva/Reuters
construction. There have been 11 housing ministers since 2005.
Town planners estimate that almost half of the capital’s urban fabric has been built illegally. The barrios are almost all self-built.
On Avenida Las Acacias, be- tween a plush building and a 25-storey tower block a gigantic sign announces the imminent construc- tion of 146 low-cost homes. The bulldozers are already at work. Three blocks further along, a similar sign indicates another 140 homes. But there is no sign of any work here. Chávez once claimed that “there is room for a second Caracas within the perimeter of the existing city,”. But the local authority will find it hard to turn that claim into reality.
Public transport is overcrowded, congestion on the roads appall- ing and power cuts, already com- mon elsewhere in Venezuela, look increasingly likely in the capital.
“We are obviously glad housing has been made a priority,” Uzcategui says. “But political determination is not enough. It makes no sense to announce the construction of 2 million new homes with no provi- sion for collective amenities, drains, transport, schools, sports grounds, power lines and such,” he adds.
“For years the left criticised tech- nocrats, but it would be good to have a few now. Ideology does not make bricks grow,” says a Socialist (PSUV) party militant.
“Two million homes for families of three to four people, means that the government has committed itself to rehousing 6 to 8 million people between now and 2017. It’s quite unrealistic,” says José Carquez, the manager of a building materials store. One problem is the shortage of materials. “The supply of cement is very irregular and we haven’t had any steel bar for about four months. It’s only available on the black market, at twice the price,” Carquez adds. The nationalisation of the steel
industry and cement firms has only aggravated a long-standing problem.
“The state cannot solve the housing crisis on its own,” says the head of the Builders Confederation, Juan Francisco Jimenez, who would like to see a public-private alliance.
“Chávez is usually very rude about Venezuelan business lead- ers, but oddly enough he seems quite happy to deal with much more extreme Russian or Chinese capitalists,” says Uzcategui. Dozens of construction contracts have been signed with Russia, China, Cuba, Uruguay and Iran, but as yet there have been few results.
“People are finally going to real- ise this government is absolutely ineffective,” says Teodoro Petkoff, the editor of the opposition daily Tal Cual. “The Vivienda initiative could well have a boomerang effect.”
“People who put their names on the housing waiting list are given a government certificate, with the hope of one day having their own home,” a Latin-American diplomat explains. “Late next year Chávez will warn voters that if the opposition wins those certificates will be worth- less. So people will vote Chávez.” Le Monde
“Current estimates suggest we need 3 million units. We should be ???? building 300,000 homes a year. But since Chávez came to power the annual average has been 30,000,” says Rafael Uzcategui, of the Provea human rights organisation. “Only President Romulo Betancourt did worse, in the early 1960s.” Then the population was seven million; it has since quadrupled.
We are glad housing has been made a priority. But political determination is n????o t e n o u g h
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