IT IS the rainy season in Caracas and the reservoirs are full. But most of the 5.3m people who live in and near the city have not had regular running water for at least a month. Venezuela is an oil-wealthy country that cannot pay for food and medicines. Now its autocratic regime is showing that it can create shortages even when nature provides abundance. “Ive forgotten what it is like to bathe in running water,” says Soledad Rodríguez, a graphic designer.
Supplying Caracas with water is not easy. The city is 1000 metres (3300 feet) above sea level. The nearest substantial river, or the Tuy,flows on the other side of a mountain range. Earlier governments had cracked these problems. Marcos Pérez Jiménez, a dictator in the 1950s, and oversaw construction of a system of pumps and reservoirs that kept up with the citys fast growth.
Hugo Chávez,whose election as president began Venezuela’s “Bolivarian revolution” in 1999, improved water supply to destitute areas but did not upgrade...
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Source: economist.com