The Cuban government’s energy-saving plan has not been fulfilled so far in July due to a "dangerous trend" towards excessive consumption that increases the risk of power outages, state media reported Saturday.

The state-run company Union Electrica said that in the first week of this month there was an "overconsumption” of more than 9,000 megawatts, 3 percent more than the planned goal.

The director of Rational Energy Use for that company, Ricardo Gonzalez, was cited in the official media as saying that the state sector has not followed the measures laid down, though "a considerable effort” is being made to avoid "those undesirable outages.”

State companies and institutions, which consume more than half of the nation’s energy, are the basic target of the government’s energy-saving plan presided over by Gen. Raul Castro, which went into effect on June 1 with drastic measures including power cuts and severe penalties for those who did not observe the new rules.

According to Gonzalez, the order to cut off energy to institutions not following the plan has been violated, nor has "the corps of inspectors” been effective in controlling energy consumption.

Castro’s government took the drastic measures to deal with the deterioration in Cuba’s economy due to the global financial crisis, falling exports and a drop in tourism, among other factors, that have created liquidity problems for the island.

The government has reduced its 2009 economic growth forecast from around 6 percent to 2.5 percent.

Source: Herald Tribune