Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro swore to shave his mustache if his government doesn’t deliver on their promise to provide one million low-income housings before the end of 2015. “I have told the minister: if by December 31 I haven’t given out the millionth housing, I will shave off my mustache as an auto punishment so people can see I didn’t deliver on my promise,” said Maduro in a statement on TV. The official referred to the initiative founded in April of 2011 by the late president Hugo Chávez, Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela.
The Mission’s initial goal was to relocate thousands of families who lost their homes in the 2010 trough. Before Chávez’s death in 2013, his plan was to give out three million houses by 2019. Maduro’s government is planning to carry this project through and assures they’ve given out 800,000 so far. In addition, Maduro also announced that the drop in oil prices will not affect social projects of the sort.
Earlier this year, Maduro closed the country’s western border to deal with the immigration crisis Venezuela’s been undergoing. Maduro’s government is going through difficult times, and despite his announcement, low oil prices do in fact threaten the government’s ability to sustain food subsidies and the president has solicited loans in the past few months to keep them going.
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