Venezuelans rush to unload bank notes
Tempers flare in bank lines, political tensions rise
CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec 14, (AP): Venezuelans took a break from lining up to buy food and medicine Tuesday and spent their day waiting in crowds to deposit bank notes about to become worthless.
As tempers flared in bank lines, political tensions rose as well, with congress officially charging President Nicolas Maduro with dereliction of duty for driving the South American country into economic ruin.
Maduro made a surprise announcement over the weekend that the 100-bolivar note, having already lost most of its value this year, will be taken out of circulation Wednesday. It is the country’s largest-denominated bill and the most widely used.
Monday was a bank holiday, so starting Tuesday morning people lined up before banks opened waiting to deposit their 100-bolivar notes in their accounts. Wealthier Venezuelans skipped the lines and instead carted backpacks full of bills to spend them at restaurants and upscale shopping centers.
People working in Venezuela’s informal economy who keep their savings in cash talked gloomily at taxi stands and street kiosks. About onethird of Venezuelans don’t have bank accounts, so have no way to deposit the soon-to-be-worthless bills.
The 100-bolivar note fell in value this year from 10 cents to 2 cents. Some are using the bills to decorate Christmas trees or are handing them out as party favors at bars.
The socialist government has promised to release higher-denomination notes this week amid the world’s highest inflation and widespread shortages of goods. But economists say the rollout will not be fast enough to replace the 100-bolivar note and avoid a temporary freeze on cash transactions. On Tuesday, banks quickly ran out of lower denomination bills.
Along with the surprise decommissioning of the most widely used bill, Maduro shut the border with Colombia this week, saying a 72-hour closure was needed to attack “mafias” that are destabilizing the economy by hoarding hard-to-find bolivar notes and sending them back across the border for huge gain. Critics mocked the idea that gangsters would keep their wealth in the world’s fastest devaluing currency.