Venezuela enduring toilet paper shortage, President Maduro blames anti-government movement, media

Venezuela’s new president promises to import 50 million rolls of toilet paper as fears of a bathroom emergency spread prompting people across the socialist country to waiting on long lines at supermarkets or pharmacies to stock on up soft tissue.

“I’ve been looking for it for two weeks,” Cristina Ramos told the Associated PressWednesday during her hunt for soft white paper. “I was told that they had some here and now I’m in line.”

photo Luigi Chiesa via wikimedia commons

Stores have run out, and each new delivery sees a rush on supermarkets.

The demand is so great the government has now been forced to order 50 million rolls to appease desperate shoppers.

One woman standing in line at a Caracas supermarket that received a fresh delivery told the Associated Press that she had been scouring the capital city’s shops for two weeks.

“Even at my age, I’ve never seen this,” another, 70-year-old shopper told Sky News.

President Nicholas Maduro blames anti-government forces and the private sector for causing the shortages in an effort to destabilize the country.

The ‘excessive demand’ for tissue had “built up due to a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country” and the government ”will bring in 50 million to show those groups that they won’t make us bow down,” Venezuela Commerce Minister, Alejandro Fleming, told Venezuelan State news agency AVN Tuesday.

“The revolution will bring in the coming days the equivalent of 50 million toilet rolls. Starting this Friday until Wednesday next week, we will get the first shipment which will be equivalent to 20 million toilet rolls of paper needed to cover demand for a week or even more than a week,” he said. “We are going to saturate the market so that our people calm down.”

Economists say state controlled prices always result in shortages and the shortage of the basic necessity is probably a result of years of financial dysfunction and prohibitive foreign exchange controls.