Venezuelan president to ax moustache if he misses housing target

CARACAS - Agence France-Presse

AP photo

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pledged Nov. 5 to cut off his moustache if the government fails to meet a goal to provide a million new homes by year’s end.

“If by Dec. 31 I have not turned over home number one million, I will cut off my moustache in self-punishment so everyone will know that I failed,” Maduro said.

He was referring to an ambitious housing construction project launched by Hugo Chavez in 2011 to relocate thousands of families that lost their homes in devastating flooding in 2010.

Chavez, who died in 2013, pledged to build three million homes by 2019.

Maduro’s government says that so far it has handed over 800,000 houses to its new owners.

With legislative elections a month off, Maduro said that the drop in oil prices will not affect the government’s social aid programs. Oil is Venezuela’s main source of revenue.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves but its economy is a mess, with soaring inflation and rampant shortages of goods as basic as toilet paper.

Polls give the opposition a lead of 14 to 31 points ahead of the Dec. 6 elections to renew the 167 seat National Assembly, currently controlled by the ruling party.