Power cuts cause resentment in Vietnam (Feature)

By Matt Steinglass Jun 15, 2010, 8:33 GMT

Hanoi - In Vietnam, rolling blackouts this summer are driving a wedge between ordinary citizens and the export manufacturers that receive priority for electricity.

Economic growth is driving demand for electricity up by more than 10 per cent per year, and new power plants have yet to come online. Spring droughts have left hydroelectric dams below capacity.

Power cuts instituted by the national electric monopoly, Electricity Vietnam (EVN), have largely spared Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as key export industries.

But provincial and rural residents have endured temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius without electric fans.

'They cut off the electricity every day, from 7 am to 9 pm,' said Vu Thi Chuong, 47, a butcher in Hai Duong province 60 kilometers south-east of Hanoi. 'The children cannot sleep, and often get sick.'

'All the people in my village are angry about the electricity,' said Hai Duong farmer Vu Thi Sao, 32. 'We are starting a new crop, the farmers need water to sow their rice, but there is no electricity to pump water from the river to the fields.'

The news website VietnamNet reported Monday that residents of Hai Duong were spreading rumours of businesses using connections or corruption to get power when the surrounding neighbourhood is dark.

Residents and small business owners Tuesday confirmed the resentment.

Shopkeeper Nguyen Van Thanh, 44, said he normally makes 20 dollars per day in summer selling ice cream, but has no power to run his ice-cream machine.

'It's completely unfair that companies in industrial zones still have electricity,' Thanh said. 'Hospitals and schools should have it, but why should one company get electricity while others don't?'

The amount of power cuts is set by EVN, but whose power will be cut is decided by provincial governments, known as People's Committees.

Nguyen Thi Minh, chairwoman of the Hai Duong People's Committee, said she provides guidelines for the cuts to the provincial Department of Trade. The department gives priority to export industries, hospitals, schools, broadcasters and manufacturers.

Smaller businesses located outside high-priority industrial zones have complained that power cuts have hit them hard as well.

Pham Thi Lieu, chief executive of a medium-sized export garment firm in Hung Yen province north of Hanoi, said power cuts had forced his firm to spend 21,000 dollars on a generator and 3,000 dollars per day on fuel.

An opinion piece published in the newspaper Tuoi Tre on Tuesday offered an unusually direct critique of government electricity policy.

'According to government reports, electricity shortages will continue to occur for many more years! Why is this happening?' wrote journalist Ngoc Minh.

Vietnam plans to quadruple its coal-fired generating capacity by 2015. The massive new Son La dam is due to come online in December, and the country plans to have 1,000 megawatt of wind turbines and a Russian-built nuclear power plant by 2020.

But officials say meeting the country's demand for power depends on legal reform of the electricity sector to allow for higher prices. Reforms have stalled over rival plans offered by EVN and the Ministry of Trade and Industry.

'The electricity problem will only be solved when the price of electricity is raised,' Tran Quoc Anh, former deputy head of EVN, said.