The Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, and the Secretary of Energy, Flavia Royón held a meeting to discuss
Edesur
.
The officials evaluated
the appointment of a controller at the distributor, but the greatest possibility is that only technicians will be appointed.
Edesur executives were urgently summoned
to the Energy Secretariat.
There they will be made aware of the position to be taken.
She is likely to be served with a $1 billion fine.
Massa and Royón have finished their meeting.
Edesur
already has a supervisor since last year.
Her name is Silvia Merzi
.
She already has a lot of information about how the company works.
Energía is also evaluating a resolution that implies the
permanent presence of Enre (regulatory entity) technicians "in situ"
with powers to oversee operational processes, follow-up, attention to claims, and intervention in performance with users.
There could also be an
unprecedented fine
of $1 billion.
But its immediate application is a complex task, since companies can appeal.
The power cuts over the weekend
revived the confrontation between the Government and Edesur.
Different sectors of the Government that have been questioning Edesur since the pandemic are asking that the concession of that distributor be declared to expire.
Enel, the Italian company that is a 75% shareholder of Edesur, put the distributor up for sale.
In the Executive Branch they speak of a
"drastic decision"
.
The Enre usually issues fines to Edesur for his alleged responsibility in the cuts.
But the accumulation of fines would not be enough to generate sufficient legal grounds to justify a termination of the concession.
Walter Martello, controller of Enre, started a kind of comprehensive audit on the management of Edesur.
It will be a performance report, to
"evaluate its repeated breaches and behaviors towards users
, and the corresponding evaluation of the acts to follow".
Edesur is waiting for Enre's requirements to reply.
"An intervention prior to that report that the Enre is making, without the possibility of discharging the parties, is legally dangerous," explains a lawyer specializing in public service concessions, speaking in general terms, without knowing the case in particular.
In a week
there will be a first meeting of the Enre table for that audit
.
Those responsible for Legal and Regulatory Affairs, Quality Control, and investment monitoring will be there.
Later, those sectors of the Enre must gather their respective departmental sections.
“That report will be technical and there will be no political decision.
It will be sent to the respective areas (Secretary of Energy, Ministry of Economy) so that they can decide which direction they want to take”, highlight the Enre technicians.
The auditor Martello already had expressions in which he stated that the nationalization of Edesur is "a possibility."
But he always clarified that this process had to meet a series of legal requirements, previous steps, and notifications, so as not to generate a subsequent trial in multilateral organizations for the country.
The government's crossroads with Edesur
also generate some suspicions in the private sector
.
“It is a way of lowering the price of Edesur,
so that a businessman friend can buy it,” they criticize.
The reference would point to certain supposed names of businessmen of good arrival to the Minister of Economy.
In the Government they say they have indicators that show a small number of crews available at the time of the cuts, and a number of workers employed for this task that the
regulators consider "minimum".
They also criticize that Edesur took electrical generating equipment to different areas (Lugano, Esteban Echeverría), but that it took time to connect them, due to a lack of personnel.
In a request, the company reiterated that the largest cut was due to a request from SACME, the company that coordinates and operates the high-voltage network. It said that this month was the hottest February in the last 60 years
and
that Friday the 10th , at 1:45 p.m. they had a historical record of energy demand of 4,181 MW.
At that time, they added, "SACME asked Edesur to make cuts to customers, after reporting that power generation for the southern area of Buenos Aires was insufficient."
"As a result of SACME's order, preventive power cuts were made to some 180,000 customers, equivalent to 250 MW, between 2:00 p.m. and 5:00
p.m.
