1980s Romanian Joke: “Q: Do you know what they used to light houses with before they had candles? A: Electricity!”
My usual process when I sit down to write for a foreign audience is to ask myself: what features of the Chávez era are entirely evident to Venezuelans but hard to fathom for outsiders? To the extent that I manage to chip away at those lacunae, I think I’m doing my job.
This week, over on the IHT, I try to get at the multiple feedback loops between ideological rigidity, mismanagement and corruption, and the way they cripple the government as it tries to manage a complex 21st century society.
The now-chronic electric crisis is, when you think about it, a perfect illustration of that: the problems created by ideological rigidity (in the form of frozen electric rates) are amplified by a basic inability to manage a complex technological system and then deepened by corruption, turning what ought to have been a tricky-but-resolvable problem into an administrative quagmire that the government then has to patch up a realazo limpio.
It’s probably mission impossible to try to illustrate that in 700 words. But what can I say? I enjoy a challenge…
realazo limpio?
An example in the US might be the Department of Education.The more money they spend the worse it gets
It’s like “Chavez (Hugo), Chavez (Argenis), Chavez (Asdrubal): a hopefully not Eternal and defintely not Golden Braid.”
Very good article, in any event.
Good article, Quico, too bad that I was going to write about diesel for FP. Now, what do I write for FP? I thought we agreed I was gonna talk about the diesel thing …
Oh, sorry, I misinterpreted. I thought you just wanted to use the idea of Kleptodysplasia to talk about something else!
Hmmmm…you can still talk about Diesel, though – just find a different angle to go into it.
I also thought I’d approach it a bit differently than I had in the blog by hitting Proyecto ICO – the project to interconnect the two separate natural gas pipeline networks http://www.pdvsa.com/index.php?tpl=interface.sp/design/readmenu.tpl.html&newsid_obj_id=7609&newsid_temas=84 – as a theme.
It’s really remarkable, when you think about it – the government is foregoing exports of diesel fuel of $15 bn a year because it’s 5 years late on a gas pipeline that, even after it’s gone 3 times over budget, still costs less than $1 bn! Every three weeks we burn – literally burn – diesel worth the cost of the entire ICO project!! La locura total…
Yes, I’ll give it a different angle.
I like this little conversation. Dále pues.
The problems started when the government nationalized the electric sector in 2007.
While nationalization in 2007 added to the problems with electricity, government-caused problems with electricity started years before. The incoming Chavez government did not follow recommendations that had been made by 1998 regarding building additional electrical infrastructure such as the Alto Caroni dams:
By the summer of 2008, Planta Centro near Puerto Cabello was in a state of extreme disrepair, neglect which appears to have been the product of years of mismanagement. How long had Cadafe been running Planta Centro?
For what it’s worth, here is a more complete set of Planta Centro photos. n
For your Friday afternoon delight:
jajaja
Quico, challenge met! Good article.
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Now CORPOELEC employees are being murdered because of the blackouts. http://www.eluniversal.com/sucesos/120921/por-falla-electrica-matan-a-trabajador-de-corpoelec-en-aragua which show how irrational and senseless is this getting.
I´m just impressed bu your use of the word “lacunae.”
“The now-chronic electric crisis”. “The ongoing chronic food shortages”. “The always escalating murder rate”. “The ever getting rich boliburgeses”. “The never ending stream of lies told by the government”. “The expected electoral fraud”. “The dream world the opposition lives in”.
Now – here is your homeworl. Only one of the phrases above is true. If you8 get it right then you are not living in a drem world.
Only a few days to go now – what are you going to do with another 6 years os Bolivarian Socialism? What will the size of the defeat be – I guess at least by 3 million votes in favor of Chavez.
I don’t disagree with your final analysis. But for me the gas pipeline project doesn’t stand out (yet) as being particularly bad. There are many many many examples of well managed countries who haven’t been able to bring in large infrastructure projects on time or budget. $350m for a cross country pipeline seems very cheap to me. You can argue there was poor planning and I’d agree, but from my perspective I think you’d be very lucky to get that pipeline in for anything less than the current estimates, if not considerably more.
The worry isn’t about the $891 million the pipeline costs, it’s about the $15 billion in diesel we burn – literally – every year it’s late.
Toro, aren’t you an outsider yourself?