Nicolás Maduro has thrown the Minister of Energy amid the wave of power outages in Venezuela

CARACAS.- A few hours after announcing a plan for
rationing of electricity before the
successive power outages that hit

Venezuela

since early March, yesterday
President

Nicolás Maduro

announced that the Minister of Energy would leave office.

The holder until the wallet, Luis Motta, will be replaced by Igor Gavidia, 65-year-old electrical engineer, former president of the state-owned Electrificación del Caroni CA (Edelca), which the Bolivarian has described as an "electric industry worker with 25 years of experience".

"There must be necessary changes … I want to thank Major General Motta Domínguez, who has had four years of incessant war at the head of the Ministry of Electricity" and the state company Corpoelec, said Maduro in a message broadcast by television

In addition, President Chavez announced the signing of a decree to activate "a major power plant" led by Vice President Delcy Rodriguez and the Minister of the Interior and Justice, General Néstor Reverol, who should seek solutions to the crisis and enhance the safety of people. sector installations in a country where power outages have been common for more than a decade.

The measure comes amidst protests that do not stop before the power cuts that cause a lack of water and exacerbate a total crisis of the population, waiting for a lot of things to get food in them. supermarkets, drugs in pharmacies, etc. is facing a record inflation of unthinkable numbers.

However, the government is not taking things in hand: its position, despite the changes and allegations of lack of maintenance, remains the same. Maduro denounces the fact that the current black-out chain is due to "terrorist attacks" led by the United States with the support of the Venezuelan opposition to get it out of the Miraflores Palace. On the other hand, electrical experts point out that the electrical infrastructure is undergoing years of disinvestment, lack of maintenance, and even spare parts and technicians.

Neither light nor water

Hundreds of Venezuelans demonstrated yesterday in several districts of Caracas and the rest of the country against persistent failures in the supply of electricity and water.

"We are dying of thirst, we also have no light, less gas," said Andrés Bello Torres, 70, who filled two plastic cans with water from the water. a polluted river of Valencia. He said that they had boiled it to be able to consume it and that they only used it for cooking because they did not use the bathrooms . "We do the necessary in the newspapers and we throw them there," he said with emotion.

"Why do we have to live this, I badure you that in the president's house, there is no lack of water or light (…) How does a country go from here if its citizens waste a whole week looking for a few gallons of water or waiting for a few hours of light? "said Katerine Talavera, a 25-year-old waitress.

"Whenever the light goes out, we do not have water, we do not have any essence, guess what we are going to do.We will protest, we let's go ask, we'll go out in the streets of Venezuela because that's our right, "he said. Head of Parliament,

Juan Guaidó,

in an act at the Catholic University in West Caracas.

Guaidó, who invoked the Constitution to proclaim himself interim president in January and is recognized by dozens of countries as the nation's legitimate president, added that Venezuela "is not polarized, it is Overwhelming majority of the country "that protests.

Reuters and AFP agencies