Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro this week asked women in
Venezuela to reduce their use of electric hair dryers in order to save energy,
asking his nation’s women to reserve their use for “special occasions,” while
making no mention of hair dryer use by men.
Maduro and the Venezuelan government are seeking ways to
save electricity in a country highly dependent on hydroelectric energy and
whose main reservoirs have dropped to critical levels as a consequence of the
impact of El Niño.
The announcement was made as the president also announced
that public employees will no longer work Fridays starting immediately, in
compliance with a presidential decree aimed at mitigating the impact of drought
on the nation’s capacity to generate hydroelectric power.
The decree is part of the “emergency attention plan” that
Maduro originally said would last eight weeks: however, the legal text says it
will continue “as long as the El Niño climate phenomenon continues to affect
the Simon Bolivar Hydroelectric Power Plant,” the country’s chief generator.
Excluded from the decree are public employees whose work “is
related to the transport of drinking water and the chemicals needed to make it
drinkable,” the transport and storage of valuables, food, medicines, construction
materials for social programs, household waste, fuel and more.
The president also announced that electricity rationing to
shopping malls and hotels would be increased from four to nine hours per day.
The drought has led to some tough measures, including
rationing of both water and power in some areas.
Venezuela has been suffering severe shortages of electricity
since 2010, resulting in constant blackouts, as the levels of all 18 dams in
the country continue to decrease.
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