New York Bolivarian Circle student blasts government exchange rate policy

Posted: Monday, May 12, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Sociology student Omar Sierra has been complaining about government exchange rate policy office (Cadivi) . Writing from New York where he attends university, Sierra highlights the amount of red tape he has faced to received Cadivi dollars from his parents.

Sierra ... who is active in the New York Bolivarian Circle ... says he agrees with exchange rate controls and his first step was to go to the Venezuelan Consulate in New York to fill in applications forms and certify his documents ... which he duly sent to his family.

In Venezuela, Cadivi asked Sierra's father for the same documents again that his son had handed in at the Consulate. An angry Sierra sent the papers home, received confirmation from Cadivi via email on March 27 and he's says he is still waiting for authorization.

The money his parents send him goes towards paying university enrollment fees and Omar reveals that he also works in a restaurant to help pay university fees.

Thanks to the seeming ineptitude of Cadivi, Sierra thinks he's going to lose his summer enrollment chance and has written letters and sent emails without receiving any reply.

His family, Sierra bitterly comments, doesn't have the money to buy dollars on the black market or to fly to neighboring Curacao to make a deposit as many well-off families do.

What really made him mad was to overhear a conversation between two anti-government overseas students in the Big Apple who were complaining about the "pittance" that Cavidi sent them. He concludes: "the money is going out, so where's the hitch?"