The Electric Union (UNE) admitted this Saturday that nine transformers remain damaged in various communities of the municipality of Mayarí, in Holguín, with some equipment out of service for over 60 days, with authorities unable to provide a specific date for resolution.
The statement, shared on the Facebook profile of CAM Mayarí and republished by UNE, was signed by Yosvani Almira Laurencio, director of the Electric Business Unit (UEB) in the region, who listed the affected localities: Levisita, El Pilón, Vuelta Larga, Serones —with two damaged units—, Guaro, and Guairajal.
In Levisita, the transformer was rendered useless after the theft of its dielectric oil, an issue that has become endemic in the area.
The official statement itself reveals the institutional impotence: the local UEB lacks specialized workshops to repair the equipment, which must be transported to the provincial capital for maintenance, and the allocation of spare transformers relies on a priority list managed by the Holguín Electric Company that does not ensure timely assistance to the most affected communities.
Far from announcing solutions, the text shifts part of the responsibility to the neighbors themselves: it points out that keeping appliances plugged in during blackouts to take advantage of the brief moments when electricity returns "creates demand spikes that can exceed the designed capacity of the transformers."
The statement also warns that connecting homes to functional transformers to compensate for those that are broken "can end up damaging the equipment and increase the number of affected families," a narrative that places blame on users for a structural crisis that the regime itself cannot resolve.
This rhetoric is not new. The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, declared before the National Assembly on July 30 that the theft of dielectric oil occurs "daily" and that some communities have been without electricity for as long as 105 consecutive days, while he attributed a large part of the outages to user behavior.
Mayarí has a recent history of protests directly linked to this crisis.
In November 2025, residents of Guairajal took to the streets —one of the communities currently without a transformer— after 25 days without power.
In March 2026, residents of central Guatemala staged nighttime protests with pots and pans as the municipality faced 51 consecutive hours without electricity.
In June, residents of Levisa protested again and the Electric Company of Holguín acknowledged that their strategy consists of leaving entire municipalities without service to support priority circuits that serve only 4.04% of customers.
The most recent episode took place at the end of September, when women from Levisa blocked the bridge over the Cabonico River with branches and pots after nearly a month of blackout.
The following day, electricity was restored, and 14 pounds of rice were distributed per person. A neighbor from Holguín with relatives in Mayarí summarized the lesson that many took from that outcome: “What it illustrates is that we need to protest. If there is no pressure, the Government does not work.”
Holguín recorded 252 damaged transformers in the first half of 2026, a 35% increase compared to the same period last year, with 36 out of 65 electrical incidents related to theft of dielectric oil, according to data from the provincial electrical sector itself.
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