CARACAS: Venezuelan soldiers seized a food distribution center rented by companies including Nestle SA, PepsiCo. Inc and Empresas Polar SA in Caracas as the government looks to boost support ahead of elections.
The companies were given two months to remove equipment and stock at the La Yaguara industrial park, which will be converted to social housing, workers said. Several dozen workers of Polar, the largest Venezuelan food company, remain on the premises in protest against the expropriation.
“I’m scared not just for my job but for the entire country,” Beatrice Pellicer, a 24-year-old Polar corporate relations worker, said outside the warehouse sealed by armed police and National Guards. “We all just found out this morning that we have 60 days to leave.”
President Nicolas Maduro in recent months has stepped up attacks on the private sector, which he accuses of profiteering and sabotage, as his popularity wanes ahead of the Dec. 6 congressional elections. He has blamed Polar and other private food companies for the chronic shortages of basic products and spiraling inflation, while maintaining currency and price controls that have made most of national production unprofitable.
