Maybe not everyone has knowledge about what "CLAP" is, so I'll make a brief explanation. One of the main targets of the government in its repeated accusations about an economic war against Venezuela have been the private food distribution networks, whom they blame for creating shortages with the objective of destabilizing the economy. In the context of these accusations, on April 3, 2016, the Venezuelan government created the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP), which is a system to directly distribute food to the communities. These communities, organized in what is known as "Communal Councils", select a group of people who will be responsible for distributing one box per house in the sector under their dependence each month and making the respective charges.
The food that these boxes contain are mostly (if not all) imported by the Venezuelan government and, on May 17, in Colombia, the Fiscal and Customs Police confiscated 25,210 units, arguing that they contained food unfit for human consumption. In addition, they were acquired in a scheme of corruption, money laundering and illicit enrichment involving front companies domiciled in Colombia, Mexico, among others, according to the Colombian authorities. Among the images taken by the authorities, insects can be seen in foods such as pasta and rice.
These actions of the Colombian authorities have stoked the already daily accusations of conspiracy against Venezuela, but how true can this be? The truth is that this is nothing new. From investigations carried out by the National Assembly or journalistic such as those made in armando.info, to registered complaints of citizens for the poor quality of food and damage to their health, it shows that it is a real and serious matter, but the impact now it is much bigger because it is a government that has taken action.
The mechanisms of corruption are several. There are different ways of stealing in each phase of the process between assembly and acquisition. To mention a few, an investigation carried out by the National Assembly revealed how companies related to top executives of the regime have managed to bill more than $ 200,000,000 in surcharges to the Venezuelan State for freight concepts. Other investigations, such as those of the journalists of armando.info, revealed how the manufacturing companies lie in the nutritional report included in the packaging of products such as milk. For this, they requested to the Central University of Venezuela a chemical analysis that showed that the product is really a mixture high in carbohydrates and very low in proteins, to the point that a child needs to take 13 glasses of this milk to reach the amount of proteins It contains a glass of normal milk. I am only showing two examples, but the plot of corruption is immense and for obvious reasons I can not extend myself.
My point is simple: this is not something new and the authorities of other countries were slow to act.
All these things make it easy to conclude that, in Venezuela, the destruction of the productive apparatus has been totally premeditated. For the government it is much more convenient to import than to let the national private company / industry produce, for two reasons that I consider the most important: more social control and increasingly juicy commissions as the level of imports increases. The more imports, the more society will depend on them to feed themselves, because only they and their entourage of businessmen can import. The more imports, the more juicy the commissions are. They import low quality food and then sell it over its value in bolivars, but they are still more accessible because they are imported with dollars at an official rate. This is the reason (not the economic war) for which many of these products, which are now imported but that were produced in Venezuela in large quantities years ago, today are not produced and others are produced in a very small way.
Sources:
https://armando.info/Series/Details/24
http://runrun.es/nacional/venezuela-2/313804/casa-habria-pago-mas-de-206-millones-en-sobreprecio-por-clap-mexicanas.html