Venezuela Increases Funding of Communal Councils and Communes

On Tuesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that BsF 100 million ($US 40 million) will be added to the budget of the youth organisation Francisco de Miranda Front (FFS) to help organize the community councils into communes over the second half of this year.

Mérida, July 22nd, 2009 (Venezuenanalysis.com) – On Tuesday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that BsF 100 million ($US 40 million) will be added to the budget of the youth organisation Francisco de Miranda Front (FFS) to help organize the community councils into communes over the second half of this year.

The FFS, which recently celebrated the sixth anniversary of its founding, will be expected to promote the formation of communes, which integrate around ten community councils as well as production and distribution. It will also be expected to carry out diagnoses of community needs and contribute to the 13th of April Social Mission, which was set up to fight poverty.

Chavez said the commune should be the territorial base that gives life to socialism, something which can’t remain “a desire, a spirit, or a value.”

“I also ask that the governors and mayors don’t try to hijack popular power… just that they try to support it, they hand over resources, they hand over training,” he said.

Also this week, the government’s Foundation for the Development and Promotion of Communal Power (Fundacomunal) granted BsF 13.7 million ($US 6.37 million) to more than one hundred community councils in Táchira state, and the Microfinance Development Fund (Fondemi) granted BsF 17 million ($US 7.9 million) to nearly 150 community councils in Falcón state.

Fondemi President Angélica Romero said the funds are meant to help the community councils continue “the transformation of the concrete reality of their communities, and these levels of organization are necessary in order to move on to a superior level of organization, which is the formation of socialist communes.”

Fundacomunal President Roberto Rojas said that until now, 30,179 communal councils have been formed in Venezuela and he estimated another 5,000 councils which are in the process of formation.