22 September 2025
In an indication of the growing seriousness of Cuba’s worsening power and water supply situation, Cuba’s President has led a high-level meeting to discuss an action plan to address the country’s lengthening periods without power and related water shortages.
The meeting, which appeared similar in format to a Council of Ministers’ meeting, although not described as such, considered in part the need for an improved response to a growing number of fragmented local street protests in various parts of the island.
Noting euphemistically that recent days had been marked “by a context of contingencies,” President Díaz-Canel told the meeting that “despite the number and intensity of the successive ‘anti-Cuban’ protests, the enemy has failed to capitalise on the existing unrest and drive it into a social uprising.”
The official youth publication Juventud Rebelde quoted him as emphasising “the importance of increasing revolutionary vigilance in these times and of knowing how to adapt, to each circumstance, the methods of confronting criminal acts that damage the country’s vital resources.”
Díaz-Canel also stressed the importance of “cohesion between the Party, the Government, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Ministry of the Interior, the Young Communist League, mass organisations, and the population,” and the need for all such entities to be engaged in a constant discussion with the population, “explaining and listening” in spaces “designed and organised to encourage debate.”
Earlier, the meeting which involved the government’s leadership, and by video link the authorities in every province, heard from specialists that the daily power deficit is now having a serious national impact on Cubans access to water. Ministers and officials were told that the lack of electricity was causing 50% of the problems relating to its supply, drought 32%, and the breakdown of pumping equipment 10%.
Although no other figures were published relating to the overall scale of the crisis, the online and print publication quoted participating officials from the province of Santiago de Cuba as saying that the local situation was “tense,” and as telling the meeting that rapid actions are being designed to enable greater availability of the resource through the use of tanker trucks, the activation of wells, the provision of easy access points to water, and “even the possibility of transporting water by rail.”
On the subject of power outages (see also Cuba below), the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, told the meeting that “the situation in the SEN (Cuba’s National Energy System) is complex and has worsened” following the disconnection of another of Cuba’s aging thermoelectric plants (CTE) from the grid. Although making clear that power would gradually be restored, the Minister said that “major impacts” would continue at the nighttime peak, but “with a considerable decrease (in the generation deficit) during the day, below 1,000MW.”
The report quoted the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, as telling the meeting that while the focus was on the SEN and the impact on water, other issues including the food supply, medicine, and transportation also required focus.
Juventud Rebelde indicated that the meeting additionally considered “the tensions our America is experiencing due to an empire that seeks to impose peace through force,” and what it described as “other sensitive issues such as the impact of an increasingly costly and harrowing blockade on Cubans.”
The former issue reflects Cuba’s growing concern about the heightened US military presence in the Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Guyana, and recent actions by a naval task force close to Venezuela’s economic zone that has been sinking vessels alleged by Washington to be carrying narcotics destined for the US.
Juventud Rebelde’s report ended by noting President Díaz-Canel’s shared conviction that “we will move forward,” and that “one day, having overcome these moments, we will be able to recall these bitter days and the ways in which we overcame them.” “Here,” he was quoted as telling ministers, “No one will surrender.”
Highlights in this issue:
- Growing concern about impact of worsening power and water supply
- Cuba to strengthen its defence and security cooperation with China
- Energy Minister confirms fully restoring a normal power supply will require millions of Dollars
- Joint pharma production with China to be expanded, transferred to Cuba
- Ricardo Cabrisas passes
- US Court permits Administration to end humanitarian parole, deport Cubans
22 September 2025, Issue 1294
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