The government of Ecuador announced on Thursday the suspension of the collection of rates for electricity consumption for September due to complaints from citizens about excessive values in their bills despite the fact that they face rationing of up to 10 hours a day.
The Ministry of Energy reported in a statement that “an audit process was initiated to review these values” and identify possible irregularities in billing and that service cuts will not be made due to non-payment until the process is completed.
Ecuadorians face extensive energy rationing distributed in two or three cuts per workday due to one of the worst crises in the energy sector.
Alberto Carrillo, a 69-year-old retiree, told The Associated Press that his electricity bill, which was previously $22, rose to almost $30. “It’s not fair even though we don’t have light for so many hours a day and a month,” he said.
The electricity sector was declared in emergency by the authorities who attributed the crisis to the worst drought in the last 60 years. Energy generation in Ecuador depends 72% on water.
However, experts have agreed that the crisis is due to the lack of foresight of the governments in power, including the current one, which did not invest in the maintenance of thermoelectric and alternative generation plants despite the existence of reports announcing one of the worst droughts.
The chambers of production and commerce estimated losses during October due to rationing at $1.2 billion.
The government is expected to announce in the next few hours the new electricity outage schedules for the coming days.
The power outages could extend until the end of the year or the beginning of next year, authorities have said. This is the third regime of cuts that has occurred since the end of last year.
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