News article from 2011: NEWS : ASEMANA

A dark, filthy week in Cape Verde 02 June 2011
The current week is proving dark and dirty for many Cape Verdeans. Without water or even electricity, the inhabitants of various corners of the country are having trouble satisfying some of their basic needs or meeting professional commitments.

Drinking water remained, for the most past, absent from the faucets of homes in most of the neighborhoods in Praia, even though water and electricity utility Electra had promised to resolve the water supply problem before last Saturday with a brand-new network. But when distribution was started up again after six days of total dryness, the largest of the desalinization units in the Palmarejo station broke down, leaving more than 100,000 people in despair and unable to carry out basic activities such as taking a bath, washing their laundry or cleaning their homes. To make matters worse, the capital city has been experiencing prolonged blackouts since yesterday.

In Porto Novo, on the island of Santo Antão, water also disappeared from taps, and residents of the city resorted to natural springs in the island’s highlands for their supplies. A deficit of more than 93 million escudos led the company responsible for water production, Águas de Porto Novo, to suspend the supply of the liquid to the Porto Novo municipal chamber’s Autonomous Water Service, with the city’s inhabitants paying the price of the dispute between the two entities. Fortunately, the problem was resolved ion Tuesday after the forced five-day dry spell. As if this weren’t enough, Electra is now threatening to cut off electricity to the municipality because it lacks money to purchase fuel for the generators at its power station.

If in Porto Novo the specter of blackouts is still just a looming possibility, in São Vicente and Santa Catarina electricity has been cut off for hours at a time on several occasions so far this week. The company needs more than 100 million escudos a week to acquire fuel for its power stations, but its revenues are considerably below this quantity, and the subsidies previously paid by the state to make up for the deficit have been suspended.

Meanwhile, Electra’s production director for the northern islands, Hipólito Gomes, has tried to reassure Cape Verdeans, promising that, at least on the level of electricity production and distribution, there will be no more blackouts due to lack of fuel in the coming days.