(16 Oct 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Quito, Ecuador – 15 October 2024
++NIGHT SHOTS++
1. Mónica Valiente, bakery owner, making bread and waiting for power to come back
2. Close of candle lighting image of VIrgin Mary
3. Mónica Valiente, bakery owner, making bread ++PART COVERING SHOT FOUR++
4. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Mónica Valiente, bakery owner:
“I honestly don’t think it’s possible to put up with this (power outages) for even another week. We are broke. Business is down. We are already using money from our own pocket to cover expenses and rent..”
5. Various of bread
6. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Mónica Valiente, Bakery Owner:
“We even put the bakery up for sale but because of the economic situation we have no buyer.”
7. Mónica Valiente and customers
8. Various of candles lighting the bakery
STORYLINE:
Businesses in Ecuador’s capital city are in dire straits as their sales are dented by rolling power cuts introduced by the government to counteract the country’s energy system crisis.
After 11 years of struggling daily to run a modest bakery in a peripheral area of Quito, Monica Valiente is facing the possibility of closing her business due to the energy rationing enforced by President Daniel Noboa’s government.
The power cuts have significantly reduced the production of bread and other products in Valiente’s shop.
Before the crisis, she used to make 2,400 loaves of bread daily, in addition to cookies and cakes, but now produces a thousand or fewer loaves of bread and almost no other products.
"I honestly don’t think it’s possible to put up with this for even another week," she said.
"We are broke."
She has been trying to sell the equipment, an electric industrial oven and three mixers and even put the bakery up for sale, but hasn’t found a buyer.
Ecuador faces power rationing of up to 10 hours a day throughout the country due to a severe drought that has prevented the operation of the largest hydroelectric complex south of the country.
No significant rainfall has been recorded in more than 100 days.
The country suffers an electricity generation deficit of some 1,100 megawatts and depends on hydroelectricity for 72% of its power.
The National Chambers of Production and Commerce estimate losses in October alone to be US$1.2 billion.
Kathy Castro, owner of a restaurant inside a shopping mall in the north of the capital, serves customers with candles on the tables.
"We had to change many of our recipes. We can no longer cook in the oven. We are steaming and grilling. That’s what we can use." said Castro.
Officials said the cuts could continue until the end of the year or perhaps the first quarter of 2025.
This week, the government granted licenses to boost wind and solar power, although they are not expected to be operational in the short term.
AP Video shot by Cesar Olmos
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