WASHINGTON
Cuba's leadership is incapable of fixing an islandwide power outage, and needs new leaders to do so, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday.
"Cuba has an economy that doesn't work, and a political and governmental system that can't fix it, so they have to change dramatically," Rubio told reporters at the White House.
"It's not even a revolution. That thing they have has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don't get subsidies anymore, so they're in a lot of trouble, and the people in charge, they don't know how to fix it, so they have to get new people in charge," he added.
Cuba’s Electric Union (UNE) reported a total collapse Monday of the island’s power system and announced efforts are underway to restore electricity service nationwide.
The UNE said the state entity responsible for supplying electricity across the island, the National Energy System, had already been affected by a generation deficit the previous day, as electricity demand exceeded available supply, ultimately triggering a nationwide power outage.
Power generation capacity has been unable to meet demand since Sunday. The National Electric System said as of Monday, it had about 1,140 megawatts (MW) of available generation capacity, while electricity demand reached 2,347 MW, causing widespread blackouts.