Venezuelans may have to temporarily say goodbye to pasta, as food company Empresas Polar announced on Tuesday that they would be halting production of pasta.
In their announcement, the company revealed that the cause of the delay is the money that the government owes them. While Polar did not go on record to say how much money they need, in January, the company said it is owed $463 million by the Venezuelan government.
"The Polar Food plant in Maracaibo, which makes the pasta brands Primor and Gran Senora, is obliged to temporarily suspend operations due to a delay in currency payments," said Polar, reports Reuters, adding that they need the money to import wheat to make pasta. "Operations stopped this Sunday April 27th, after our stocks of wheat loaned from other companies ran out."
Venezuelans are no strangers to shortages, as the past year the country has seen a scarcity of essentials from toilet paper -- the nation had to import 50 million rolls to meet demands -- to a paper insufficiency that led to the shutdown of regional newspapers. The root cause of the shortages seen in the South American nation is the government's attempt to control prices.
"State-controlled prices -- prices that are set below market-clearing price -- always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union," said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University, to The Guardian.
The Venezuelan government has had a tumultuous year as citizens started rallying on Feb. 12, 2014, on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Victoria, to protest Nicolás Maduro's government after he succeeded Hugo Chávez. The initial protests -- led by the leaders of the Venezuelan opposition María Corina Machado and Leopoldo López -- were followed by a large, city-wide protest on Saturday, Feb. 15.
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