Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed a decree declaring an energy emergency in Venezuela to facilitate his government’s efforts to ease severe power shortages.
“We’ve been working on this because it’s a necessity. The truth is, it’s an emergency,” Chavez said on Monday.
Under the decree, Venezuelans who use more than 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month — an estimated 24 percent of all residential consumers — must reduce their consumption by 10 percent or be required to pay a 75 percent price increase.
Those who increase consumption by 10 percent will be slapped with a 100 percent price increase. If they boost usage by 20 percent, the price hike rises to 200 percent.
Venezuela imposed electricity and water rationing in December to prevent a collapse of the electricity grid as water levels behind the Guri Dam fell to critical lows. The dam supplies most of Venezuela’s electricity.
Rolling blackouts lasting up to four hours are bring imposed throughout the country — except the capital of Caracas — as the country struggles with a severe drought.
Venezuelans who collaborate with the government to save energy will be rewarded, Chavez said.
Consumers who reduce their electricity usage by 10 to 20 percent will receive a 25 percent discount on monthly bills. And those who decrease consumption by more than 20 percent, will get a 50 percent discount.
Chavez said he would set an example, vowing that energy consumption at the presidential palace would drop significantly.
The energy conservation plan also requires big businesses and industrial complexes to reduce consumption by 20 percent or face sanctions, including 24-hour to 48-hour shutdowns.
Total power consumption has risen about 25 percent since 2004 — a period during which Venezuela enjoyed an oil boom while electricity rates remained frozen, leaving little incentive to save energy. Millions of poor Venezuelans help themselves to electricity for free by splicing wires onto power lines, further straining the country’s power grid.
Venezuela is suffering from a drought as Pacific Ocean currents have changed weather patterns as part of the El Nino phenomenon, and Chavez has warned Venezuelans that the South American country’s power woes could worsen if rains don’t come as expected when the rainy season begins in May or June.
“This is the worst summer I’ve seen in my life,” Chavez said. “Everything is dry.”
Critics counter that Chavez failed to invest enough in electrical projects to meet growing demand.
Venezuelan Energy Minister Ali Rodriguez announced last week that Chavez’s administration plans to spend US$15 billion over the next five years to increase electricity production.
Rodriguez rejected allegations the government is mostly to blame for the energy shortages.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS