In early June, Venezuelan President Huge Chavez announced an end to a national electricity savings program implemented earlier this year. Nearly 70 percent of Venezuela’s power supply is produced by hydropower dams.
In January, the government ordered a 20 percent reduction in electricity consumption throughout the country. The institution of the rationing plan resulted from a major and prolonged drought, the worst in nearly 100 years. The capitalist press attempted to blame the crisis on socialized production and poor investment and the ruling class tried to use the crisis to destabilize the revolutionary government.
The rationing program did negatively impact the Venezuelan economy as it was trying to fight off the effects of the global economic recession. Heavy rainfalls this season, however, have filled many key reservoirs enough to boost production, revealing the capitalist narrative as an outright lie.
This year, the government is investing heavily in thermal generators in order to ensure that electricity remains a right and not a privilege.
