Venezuela civil servants put on two-day week to cut power usage

Venezuela’s 2.8m civil servants will start their weekends on Tuesday evenings after Nicolás Maduro, the country’s embattled president, imposed a two-day week.

The move, expected to last at least two weeks, is the latest government effort to prevent a collapse in its electrical generation infrastructure. A drought and years of under-investment has left the massive Guri reservoir, which supplies the country with the bulk of its power, at critically low levels.

Commercial centres such as shopping malls are already only open for half the day, and rolling blackouts are in place across most of the country. Primary schools will now also close on Fridays.

Addressing the nation on Tuesday night, President Maduro described the situation as “critical and extreme”. He said the measures were essential to enable the Guri reservoir to recuperate as the annual rainy season begins. He also said he will be asking for unspecified United Nations assistance in battling the crisis.

But the drastic decision only adds to the sense of foreboding surrounding his presidency. Mr Maduro’s political opponents accuse him of driving the Venezuelan economy to ruin. The country is in the midst of the world’s deepest recession. The IMF predicts inflation of 481 per cent this year. Price controls and a cut in imports mean Venezuelans often have to queue for hours for basic provisions.

On Tuesday the opposition coalition, which won control of parliament in landslide elections last December, scored a minor victory after the pro-government National Electoral Commission belatedly released official petition forms needed to begin a recall referendum, designed to oust the leftist Mr Maduro from power before his mandate ends in 2019.

By Wednesday morning around a thousand people were queueing outside the Bello Monte subway station in Caracas, keen to be the first to add their signatures.

Many were suspicious of the government’s motives in imposing the two-day week. “It’s a trick. Designed to increase all our anxiety so that we don’t sign the recall referendum,” said Carlos Angel, 61, a marketing executive.

Overnight, protests and roadblocks were reported in several cities around the country, as people vented their anger at both the power cuts and general shortages. The most serious incidents were in the state of Zulia, where during an extended blackout lasting nearly 12 hours, at least one bus was set on fire and rocks were thrown at the offices of Corpoelec, the state electricity company.

Mr Maduro says his government should not be blamed for an electricity shortage that has been brought on by drought, and specifically the El Niño weather phenomenon, which tends to bring unusually dry weather to southern areas of South America.

Others say the president is reaping the consequences of years of bad planning by both his government and that of Hugo Chávez, his predecessor.

“The event underlines the dire state of the electricity sector, which has experienced years of lack of investment and maintenance following nationalisation in 2007,” writes Diego Moya-Ocampos, senior Latin America analyst at risk consultancy IHS.