CARACAS – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced a 25 percent increase in the minimum wage, as well as the merging of the finance and planning portfolios and the appointment of a new electricity minister.

Chavez made the announcement on Friday during his annual address to the unicameral National Assembly.

The minimum wage will be raised in two phases – first a 10 percent salary increase effective March 1 and then a 15 percent hike that will enter into force on September 1.

The announcement came just days after a sharp currency devaluation that fixed the bolivar at 2.6 to the dollar for imports of essential items and at 4.3 to the greenback for imports of non-essential goods. That latter rate will be used for converting dollars from the oil-rich nation’s crude exports into the local currency.

The opposition says the devaluation is a ploy by Chavez to get more bolivars per dollar from oil exports so he can increase public spending ahead of legislative elections in September.

The socialist president said the increase of “25 percent for this year” will lift the minimum wage from its current level of 967 bolivars ($371.92/$224.88) a month to almost 1,200 bolivars ($461.54/$279.07) per month and is intended as a measure to “further reduce poverty.”

Annual inflation in Venezuela was 25.1 percent last year, down from 30.9 percent in 2008.

Separately, Chavez told lawmakers that the Planning Ministry will be subsumed into the Finance Ministry and the head of that expanded entity will be Jorge Giordani, the current planning minister.

He said the change “will give us more coherence,” without offering more details.

The president also announced the appointment of current Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez as the new electricity minister, a move that comes amid a severe power crisis that has led to government-ordered rolling blackouts in much of the country.

“I’ve designated Ali Rodriguez as new electricity minister and I wish him the best of success. When I called him, he told me: ‘I’m a soldier and wherever the revolution needs me that’s where I’ll be,’” Chavez told lawmakers.

The president had forced out the previous electricity minister, Angel Rodriguez, after a poorly executed power-rationing plan this week in Caracas caused traffic chaos and angered capital residents and business owners.

Chavez on Wednesday night cancelled the rationing in Caracas less than 24 hours after it had begun, although rolling blackouts will continue in the rest of the country until the rainy season starts in May.

Venezuela, the world’s fifth-biggest oil producer, is facing an electricity crisis due to critically low water levels at the country’s most important hydroelectric plant.

Chavez says the power shortages are mostly due to a severe drought triggered by the El Niño weather phenomenon, but the opposition says the government’s failure to invest in electricity infrastructure after nationalizing that sector in 2007 is a significant part of the problem.

According to official figures, the electricity deficit currently stands at about 1,700 MW, while the nationwide rationing plan aims to save some 1,600 MW.