Caracas Chronicles

After yesterday’s announcement that government working hours will be cut to save electricity, Nicolas Maduro tried to justify the measures in his weekly TV show by putting most (if not all) of the blame on sorry-ass consumers and especially on their overuse of Air Conditioning and TV sets.

His response? Launching “a really nice PR campaign” to save energy. Because it looks like the current one is not working.

He fell really short of pulling a HectoRodriguez and say that using AC to fight the heat can turn you into an “escualido”.

But is he right? Not quite. The Electricity Ministry didn’t reach many of its goals last year. Take it from here, NaldoXX.

(The Ministry’s report) details that the Generation Area brought online 432 MWs to the electric powergrid… However, in its 2013 report, the office’s holder (Electricity Minister Jesse Chacon) established that the goal for 2014 was to bring 2.137 new MWs into service.”

The missing megawatts comes probably from delayed proyects all over the country: Guri, Planta Cumana and TermoZulia plants. Meanwhile, there were 394 planned maintenance works in sub-stations, but only ONE was completed. One quarter of 1%.

Wait, there’s more: Of 1,026 planned new electric sub-stations promised, just 20 were finished. Let’s blame El Niño for that too.

[HT: Simon Romero, for this cool tweet from Manaus, which gives the name of this post.]