Businesses tell Chavez: “turn clock forwards”

VENEZUELA - Venezuelan business leaders want President Hugo Chavez to stage a 30-minute retreat — dropping a time zone shift they say is costing the country badly needed energy.

Noel Alvarez, president of the Fedecamaras business chamber, said that getting Venezuela back to its old time zone by moving clocks forward 30 minutes would cut monthly electricity use by 800 megawatts — half of the total the government has demanded that businesses save.

The socialist leader turned back Venezuela's clocks by 30 minutes in 2007, arguing the change would benefit children by giving them more daylight to get to school.

But business owners say it increases energy consumption at a moment when the government has declared an energy emergency and imposed tough fines on businesses that fail to cut energy usage by 20 percent.

The energy-saving initiative also targets residences that use more than 500 kilowatt-hours of electricity a month.

"He must recognize that he made a mistake. He must return to the former time zone," Alvarez told Union Radio. "But the government hasn't wanted to do it, so it's currently trying to punish businessmen."

Chavez blames the country's energy shortages on a long drought that has dropped the reservoir to critically low levels behind the Guri Dam, which supplies roughly 70 percent of Venezuela's electricity.

Government critics argue that Chavez's government failed to invest enough in electricity production over the last decade amid rising demand.

"We're not to blame," Alvarez said. "It was lack of investment and planning."