Cubans Are Tired of the State Electric Company’s Blackouts
“It’s as if they hate the people”
“I know that today they’ll give us another story, but when you least expect it, they will take away the electricity again,” says Ernesto.
HAVANA TIMES – With a major generation deficit many Cuban neighborhoods are suffering from blackouts this week. The forecast of the Cuban Electric Co. (UNE) once again exceeded 1,000 megawatts (MW) on Tuesday. This has put the citizens of the Island, who live hopelessly pending information on power cuts, on a war footing.
“This is no way to live. Yesterday they shut down the power practically all day, and for today we expect the same,” says Norma, a woman from Sancti Spíritus who lives in the provincial capital. “This hits us very hard with the heat,” she adds.
From Holguín, another city besieged by constant power cuts, Ernesto tells this newspaper that lately there are few nights when he can sleep. “They cut the power from 6:00 am to 12:00 pm, from 6:00 pm to 12:00 am and then from 3:00 am to 6:00 am. This is crazy. Most of the shops in the city aren’t open, and the cafeterias that don’t have generators cannot provide service to the public,” says Ernesto, who stayed awake yesterday fanning his son so that he could rest.
As the days go by between the blackouts and the suffocating heat, both Norma and Ernesto lose hope that the situation will improve. “I know that today they’ll give us another story, but when you least expect it, they will take away the electricity again,” Ernesto concludes.
He’s not wrong. According to the State’s daily report, the national electricity system gave only 45 minutes of relief yesterday. “At 7:48 a.m. yesterday morning the service was restored, and from 8:33 a.m. the service began to be affected again due to a generation capacity deficit, which it has not been possible to restore,” the UNE indicated.
The Electric Co. also reminds the population that five units of the thermoelectric power plants are stopped due to breakdowns: unit 8 of the Máximo Gómez, in Mariel (Artemisa); unit 5 of the 10 de Octubre, in Nuevitas (Camagüey); unit 2 of the Lidio Ramón Pérez, in Felton (Holguín); unit 5 of the Renté, in Santiago de Cuba; and unit 1 of the Ernesto Guevara, in Santa Cruz del Norte (Mayabeque). However, it reports that the latter will enter the grid in the “peak hour”.
Likewise, they report that 59 banks of generators are out of service due to lack of fuel.
With this scenario, social media users have not held back, and this Tuesday they flooded the daily report of the UNE with almost 400 comments, most of them negative and even against the Government. “There is no fuel for thermoelectric plants, but there is fuel for [Prime Minister] Marrero’s, [President] Canel’s and [Raul Castro’s grandson] El Cangrejo’s* cars. The yachts and fleets of cars of the Castros do not lack fuel either,” said Raul Eduardo Rojas, from Pinar del Río.
“Now all we need is the breakdown of the Guiteras plant to see how they run to get the fuel that suddenly appears,” says Amado Amed Díaz Seijo from the same province. And he wonders: “I would like to know what they have done with all the dollars charged for gasoline, because it’s been a while now, and everything is the same or worse.”
Dainy Ramos had power from eight to twelve at night, and they shut it off again until after four in the morning: “What child can get up for school or what person can get up with encouragement to go to work? They are killing us,” the young woman lamented.
Bobby Cabanas, retired, also expressed himself: “They are abusing the people; it’s as if they hate us.”
Others called for a true, radical change: “The highest leadership of this country must resign. They have been running this country for 65 years, and there is no progress of any kind. Don’t let them cling to power; let’s have a popular referendum.”
Off the internet, at street level, the inconveniences also multiply. “There is no light anywhere,” complained a taxi driver who had spent the morning in the capital driving through large areas, such as Marianao, El Vedado and Diez de Octubre. At street crossings, the extinguished traffic lights were a sign of the crisis, with the consequent danger of accidents.
*Translator’s note: El Cangrejo, “The Crab” is the popular nickname for Raul Castro’s grandson, who apparently is clumsy, and is also his grandfather’s chief bodyguard.
Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.