The Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel stated, in a supposed gesture of empathy, that the power outages in recent days "have been terrible, up to 20 hours."
On Thursday, the ruler visited the municipality of Amancio in Las Tunas and, in front of dozens of residents, tried to explain the energy situation and instill enthusiasm in the population, tired of the endless power outages.
"We have to chip away at problems little by little, taking another tiny piece each day to keep moving forward (...). The power outages have been terrible, up to 20 hours long, but that will be resolved. There are plants under maintenance, and this has been the strategy to prevent disruptions during the summer," he said.
He said that the breakdown of several plants has coincided with the maintenance of others just before the summer.
Díaz-Canel stated that this "must be explained to the people," so "they know that there is an uncomfortable, but temporary situation."
However, several Cubans have replied to the publication and expressed their discontent with the government's poor handling of the crisis.
"I believe that the little pieces of the problem we are uncovering are too small, we will never solve it this way. For 4 years, we have been hearing about maintenance being done to ensure power supply during the summer, yet in the end, the summer is just as dark. They spend the whole year maintaining the same power plants, and they are always broken," commented an internet user.
At least in eight out of the last 10 days, Cuban authorities have reported 24-hour blackouts.
The energy crisis is keeping the population on edge, and the regime has acknowledged that it expects protests in the summer, where despite the official discourse, apparently the situation will not improve.
