The sound of the alarm clock. It is 3:00 in the morning, time to get up to Aixa Morales, a pensionada and housewife from venezuela, 69 years old, who interrupted his break to go to a grocery store near your home and buy food. The woman lives in the south of Maracaibo, capital of Zulia state, located about 700 miles west of Caracas.Get out of your home at that hour is very unusual, unless it is a medical emergency, but in this occasion is psyched to spend hours in a row and try to change the “petroaguinaldo”, an airdrop of 0.5 PTR, submitted by the government of Nicolás Maduro to the more than three million pensioners and public workers in the country.Aixa doesn’t know much about the petro and do not know how to use it. However, his neighbours have been told that you can change it by using food the system biopago of the Bank of Venezuela, a type of point-of-sale that uses the fingerprint of the user to the funds transfer and is connected to the platform Country, where are the petros. Yes, you must get up early if you want to have a better chance of doing so due to the large amount of people that come to the same end.Those consulted complained about how slow is the process to enter the establishments. Photo: Rafael Gómez Torres“I’m doing the queue (line) from 4:00 in the morning, and already had 28 people in front. Here make a list to organize people at the entrance. The process is slow, the system falls out all the time. Note the time that is, and I have not entered. It falls too much the signal. The first time that I’m going to use the petro, the prices here are more expensive, but you have to spend that,” he told Morales to Breaking News this Monday, December 30, at about 1:00 in the afternoon.In the place you make two rows. One for the pensioners or public workers in physical conditions are stable and the other for the pensioners who are disabled, in wheelchairs, with crutches or suffering from any chronic disease. The latter give them priority, while the rest of the beneficiaries waiting outside the establishment.Most of the people that were waiting were doing so without the company of family or younger people that may assist with water, food, or queuing up for them. To counteract the high temperatures of the city and make more bearable the waiting time, to the pensioners they were furnished with chairs and a canopy (parasol or pergola) to remain standing while waiting for their turn.
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Few facilities are available
Who questioned the allocation of the means petro for pensioners and public workers was Luis Fernández, a 65-year-old, who did not hide his distaste for having to spend the petros doing a long line and waste time in one of the few facilities available for your use.Those who wish to buy food or other products with petros in approved establishments must be up early. Photo: Rafael Gómez Torres.”This is the worse thing that has made the government, this is a punishment and a mockery to the existence of God. You have to spend the petros, but here there are only three retailers who receive them. By the age that one has where am I going to go? here come the oldies with disabilities, there are two lines of people of the third age, this is a disorganization”, said the man who also had to get up early to try to bring food to your home.The scene that is lived to the south of Maracaibo is similar to that of hundreds of business premises across the country. Caracas, Valencia, Puerto La Cruz and Barquisimeto are other examples where the long lines are the order of the day.There is No clear information on how many premises there are in the country in which they can redeem the petros products. There are versions that say that this is around 4,800, other sources assure that they are more than 27,000 businesses that process this type of payment. What is certain is that, although the government granted a kind of bonus to the people of the third age and the public employees, the interviewees suggested that if I wanted to give an economic benefit, was due to make in bolivars or through the card of the Homeland in the form of bonus and that every one who spent it in where I wanted.At least that is the opinion of Antonio Suarez, a exeducador of 65 years, who indicated to this newspaper: “What he ought to do is to deposit the funds in bolivars under the figure of bonus on the card of the country and after one’s self then transfer it to your bank. The other solution is that all businesses will accept the petro with the fingerprint system so that one does not have to go through these situations. It doesn’t serve us that this mode is accepted only in some establishments”.The card of the country, it is an identification that is parallel to the identity card of the venezuelans who was created by the government to grant bonuses as a form of social subsidies to those who have registered on the platform. What I wish Suarez would go against the current to what it would look for the government of Venezuela to promote the use of petro as criptomoneda at various levels.
Control of operations
This Sunday the 29th of December, began an inspection on all over the country to check how they were developing the payments with petro. This was announced by the minister for Trade, Eneida Laya Lugo, who via twitter, pointed out that they had been operating in San Fernando de Apure. In addition, this Monday, 30, pointed out that the deployment of officials was to “verify that products paid for with the Petroaguinaldo are not subject to commissions or variations of their prices”.This situation has been denounced on social networks by various users who claim to traders why they increase the prices when it comes to a payment with petros. The user @CyborgThe published on the social network: “a lack Calabozo, Guárico, where the shops with biopago, charge triple the amount of each product and the authorities don’t do anything about it.”At least 100 people were around the supermarket to enter. Photo: Rafael Gómez Torres.As well as there are pensioners who questioned the measure, there are others such as Fatima Chacon, a housewife of 57 years, which supported the announcement of Maduro in order to purchase products with petros in the midst of the economic crisis and the hyperinflation experienced in Venezuela.To be consulted by Breaking News said: “I came last Friday and the device that reads the fingerprint I don’t read it. The girl that was in the box told me to take a ticket and with that ticket no longer going to queue when I returned. I came back today Monday and I bought pre-cooked maize flour in 65 thousand bolivars, cheese in 220 thousand, potatoes and carrots in 120 thousand bolivars and butter 500 grams 95 thousand bolivars”.The woman admitted that the prices are more expensive here than in the places where they do not process payments with petros. However, defended the government action saying that “the benefits are many, I receive my medications and food via Clap”.The pensioners kept the doubts, the anxiety and criticism about how it has been developed for the delivery of the bond, and especially about how is the process to benefit from it, something that shows the ignorance that there is in the country in terms of the petro, especially in persons of the third age.