The timing seems off on that. That article dates from Sep 2017, at which point the Venezuelan economic crisis had been going for 7 years, and been serious for 4. Inflation was 69% by 2014, well before this announcement.

I think a more likely explanation is that Chavez instituted a number of policies that were extremely friendly to consumers and hostile to producers, with the result that the producers all left, which meant there were no goods for consumers to buy, which sent prices through the roof and instituted a (un)healthy black market.