Rodolfo Lara
07/23/2020 - 16:53
- Clarín.com
- Politics
Forty-eight hours after asking the governor, Axel Kicillof, for the termination of the concession to the electric service provider Edesur, which involves 12 municipalities of the Conurbano, the first formal complaint for breach of the company's contract was presented this Thursday. .
The presentation at the National Electricity Regulatory Entity (ENRE) was given by the mayor of Esteban Echeverría, Fernando Gray. It is for the construction of an electrical substation in that district, which Edesur would have committed in 2015, "to face the growing demand".
It is part of the political offensive of the communal leaders of the Front of All. They are trying to get the Province to act to remove the concession from the company with Italian capital. At this week's meeting with the mayors, in La Plata, Kicillof and the Buenos Aires undersecretary for energy, Gastón Ghioni, supported the claims. Mayra Mendoza (Quilmes) and Martín Insaurralde (Lomas de Zamora) proposed the revision of the contractual relationship with Edesur. It is a complex process. And eventually onerous for the provincial state, which would end up in judicial stages with presumed obligations of compensation.
Still, Gray insisted this Thursday on raising the alternative of rupture. But, in addition, he resorted to the administrative route with the ENRE to report the breach of contract that committed to the construction of the substation. Sequentially, he explained that in 2015 "the municipality gave up land in the Luis Guillón Industrial Park, which fulfilled the requirements of the energy distributor, despite the fact that the responsibility for acquiring the property belonged to the company."
"After innumerable and unjustified delays, on January 14, 2015 the usufruct contract was signed, " that is, according to the document, the authorization for free use of the property. There the works had to advance. The established execution period was five years. In between, it was guaranteed that the municipal government should process the necessary works authorizations and permits.
The complaint concludes that "after the stipulated time has elapsed, and without construction having begun, we went to the corresponding administrative area to present the unilateral breach of the agreement." "This non-compliance is verified in the poor quality of the service, with continuous power cuts and voltage problems that affect the residents of Esteban Echeverría."
From the tug of war there are shared responsibilities. To the company for lack of investment, attributable, always protected by the company, to changes in contractual conditions, freezing of rates, among several factors. And the other part that is in the official registry: an alleged debt of 3,000 million pesos that the municipalities should pay with EDESUR for the thousands of users "hooked" on the network in towns and settlements.
That subsidy commitment was first assumed by the national state, but later it was transferred to the Province, and in 2018 Governor María Eugenia Vidal transferred the responsibility to the municipalities.
The arrival of the pandemic in March, which forced social isolation, and the deepening of the recessive conditions of the economy, with the decrease derived from income in the municipal coffers, contributed with greater acuity to the problem.