Maduro Bribes Venezuelans with $4.50 ‘Grant’ Days Before Sham Election

Venezuela’s socialist regime began distributing a $4.50 stipend bonus this week, days before the upcoming July 28 sham presidential election.

Similar to other “generous” monetary grants of the same nature, the $4.50 bonus is part of the Maduro regime’s “social protection” welfare programs. The stipend will be randomly distributed throughout the week to users of the Maduro regime’s Fatherland platform, a system implemented by the ruling socialists largely inspired by China’s social credit system. 

According to the Maduro regime, the 180 Venezuelan bolivars money bonus, known as the “Universal Giant Bonus,” commemorates the birthday of Venezuelan independence hero and founding father Simón Bolívar, who was born on July 24, 1783. 

Venezuelans mark July 24 as a national holiday in celebration of Bolívar, who in addition to Venezuela, spearheaded the independence of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bolivia — which is named after him — from Spain’s colonial rule.

Venezuela’s highly devalued currency, the bolivar, is also named after its founding father.

“The delivery of the Universal Giant Bonus through the Fatherland System sent by our President Nicolás Maduro has started,” the official account of the Fatherland platform’s stipend bonus distribution system announced on Wednesday.

“We celebrate the birth of Simón Bolívar, wielding his sword and his flag with strength. Proud sons and daughters of a giant of history”, the Fatherland platform’s website stated.

The Fatherland system is a social control platform that the Maduro regime built and deployed with the aid of China’s ZTE company. The platform has seen its functionality largely expanded throughout the years and contains an extensive amount of information about users and their families, ranging from personal data, work information, and health-related information such as Wuhan coronavirus vaccination status.

Usage of the platform is mandatory for Venezuelans who wish to receive the meager monetary stipends it provides, as well as other “benefits” that the socialist government provides such as monthly rations of subsidized gasoline and the CLAP program, a package that contains subsidized low-quality and often rotten or bug-infested food.

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The roughly $4.50 stipend distributed by the ruling socialists is too small to have any meaningful utility for Venezuela’s impoverished citizens. It cannot cover the $552.29 that a Venezuelan family needs to be able to cover basic food expenses monthly, according to local analysts. The Maduro regime has maintained Venezuela’s monthly minimum wage at roughly $3.39 per month for the past several years. Private sector wages average $225 per month as of April.

The Fatherland platform frequently distributes other types of monetary stipends, some of which have specific recipients such as pregnant women or the elderly. The amounts, however, are notoriously low and often do not amount to more than $5 when converting them from Venezuelan bolivars.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.