Venezuela faces impact of electricity shortage

Global Business

Venezuela is facing electricity shortages due to partly drought and partly the lack of a back-up plan.

CCTV America’s Stephen Gibbs reports from Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela.

 

Puerto Ordaz is a city built on the idea of cheap power. It was founded in the 1950s.

The idea then was to harness the abundant and cheap hydro-electric potential on its doorstep, and develop steel and other industries, so Venezuela would become less dependent on oil.

Now that dream is ending.

This city, like most of Venezuela, is running out of power. There isn’t enough water in the reservoirs, and the government, already struggling with the world’s steepest recession, is ordering dramatic cutbacks.

Driving around the city at night, we soon came across a small protest by people haven’t had electricity in their homes for three days.

In a desperate bid to save electricity, businesses, which pay minimal costs for their power, are being ordered to radically cut down their opening hours.

At only 7:30 p.m. one of the city’s main shopping centers was shut down because of electricity rationing.

President Maduro says the electricity rationing is temporary, and that he should not be blamed for a problem that is largely caused by the weather.

But this is a government that has long promised to be the provider to its people. Plenty here feel that deal has been broken.


 

Professor George Ciccariello-Maher on the crisis in Venezuela

CCTV America’s Mike Walter interviewed Drexel University Associate Professor George Ciccariello-Maher about what Venezuela faces now and in the years to come. Follow him on twitter at @ciccmaher.