Venezuela's Government Advances Clock to Tackle Energy Crisis

The Venezuelan government has moved the official time of the country forward by half an hour starting from the early morning of Sunday, April 12, in an attempt to mitigate the widespread energy crisis caused by a shortage of energy in the country. Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela, had ordered such a change in the official time in April. This measure is part of new government actions, which also include reducing working hours, closing schools on Fridays (in addition to Saturdays and Sundays), and reducing government employees' working days to two days a week. Venezuela is a member of OPEC and an oil-rich country; however, the El Niño weather phenomenon, which has intensified in recent months, has significantly reduced the country's water reserves and has seriously impacted electricity supply. Thus, the official time of Venezuela is now four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time. This change effectively returns the country's time to what it was until 2007 when Hugo Chávez had moved the official time back by half an hour so that students would not have to wake up too early. Maduro is one of the closest politicians to Hugo Chávez - the late President of Venezuela who was a close friend of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some analysts believe that the Venezuelan government's policies are significantly 'populist.' It seems that drought and the El Niño phenomenon have exacerbated the crisis caused by falling oil prices and 720% inflation. The Venezuelan government claims that weather phenomena are the main reason for the current crisis, but the opposition argues that inadequate investment in the energy sector has created it.