Venezuela’s motorists’ resort to bartering

Venezuela’s economy is so bad that people have resorted to bartering rather than use cash to fill their vehicles with gas.

Motorists in socialist Venezuela have long enjoyed the world’s cheapest gasoline, with fuel so heavily subsidized that a full tank these days costs a tiny fraction of a US penny. But the economy is in such shambles that drivers are now paying for fill-ups with a little food, a candy bar or just a cigarette.

Bartering at the pump has taken off as hyperinflation makes Venezuela’s paper currency, the bolivar, hard to find and renders some denominations all but worthless, so that nobody will accept them.

Without cash in their wallets, drivers often hand gas station attendants a bag of rice, cooking oil or whatever is within reach.

“You can pay with a cigarette,” said Orlando Molina, filling up his subcompact Ford Ka in Caracas. “Heck, it’s no secret to anyone that it goes for nothing.”

Gas is so cheap that station attendants don’t even know the price. Emptyhanded drivers get waved through, paying nothing at all.

This barter system, while perhaps the envy of cash-strapped drivers outside the country, is just another symptom of bedlam in Venezuela.

The South American nation of 30 million people is gripped by a deepening political and economic crisis. People live with a nagging feeling that anything from violent street protests to a massive power failure could throw their lives into chaos at any moment.

More than four million Venezuelans have fled the country in recent years, escaping low wages, broken hospitals, failing basic services and lack of security.