Electricity: economic empires, plunder and poverty

If there is anything that bothers the spirit of a man or a woman, as long as they are services in the house, are debts which must be paid monthly. Every time a receipt or bill for a service arrives from primarily electricitywe scream into the air.

And I say it’s a cry into the air because our disagreement is diluted or dissipated in the loud echo nostalgia and sadness and yes no oneas an authority, he pays us minimal attention.

If we claim why this or that increase in the mentioned charges, we are never right. It is foolish to think that these companies will shoot themselves in the foot or that they will admit to returns or refunds.

In our country, when it comes to so many consumers of this service, i.e. electricity, the dollars that are stolen from us on each bill, obviously become not several million dollars that end up, first, after a high percentage, in electricity production companies (American multinational AES, basically, as well as ENEL GREEN GROUP and others).

Then, the marketing companies and distributors of the aforementioned electricity take over another part of that troglodyte and merciless morsel that they make the Panamanian people complicit, silent or a little It is important from the government.

ETESA, which boasts of being a state-owned company100% Panamanian, never takes positions in favor of the people, on the contrary, enthroned in the mechanism of the insatiable appetite for money and which combines the production, marketing and distribution companies of electricity, all together, close ranks to end that aspiration for the Panamanian people in terms of demands and requires a significant reduction in high costs of electricity in Panamacan be accepted or accessed.

Never a prosecutor is right, reason will always be on their side, the company, because they are, simply or simply, “the same reason”.

The problem regarding the electrical service is not just any problem. As my brother Ramiro Guerra warns, “the issue of electricity service is considered a national security issue and must be handled States. but reality Now privatization has opened the door to private sector control. On oligopolies and monopolies. We are paying dearly for the privatization of the old IRHE. How is it possible that one energy company controls almost 70% of energy production activities, and all governments have been complicit in this disaster affecting the Panamanian people.” (Guerra, Ramiro. The country needs true development planners. El Periódico Digital, Wednesday, 17./24. January).

This power company, the same one that then, every year, shows up giving a tiny bit of its profits to the government and demanding that the president pose for a photo, is the one that takes billions of dollars to generate electricity. electrical energy and whose money came from the very stomach of the Panamanian people. Like I said, we’ve already reached the point unfortunate in that “we pay for electricity and we don’t eat, otherwise our children wouldn’t go to school.

Given the existing monopolies, these companies are prone to abuse and constant increases in electricity prices. It turns out that the Panamanian market must be, everything, open to the free the request and the state control the agreement from the price of the service provided. But none of this happens. The state is complicit in this perverse robbery of the country.

It was announced that Naturgy will increase the price of electricity between 2% and 15% in the first half of this year. Another blow to the pockets of the starving and impoverished large national majority in the country. If you go online and say “Naturgy sanctioned” You will be surprised to know that the same company, a Spanish company, has been sentenced, quite often, to pay billions of euros for consumer abuse, for unfair and abusive practices, and there are quite a few city councils in Spain that constantly impose sanctions for unfair practices.

The final straw is the following: On the Internet Naturgy It is described as a company that sells, produces and distributes electricity and, it is added, works for the prosperity of the company, society and people. Who are they fooling? Electricity bills that, as soon as 21 days have passed, another one arrives, charging you again for a month that hasn’t even expired.

These accounts are magical. On the other hand, electricity meters that no one reads and electricity bills that are a real robbery for Panamanians. They do everything based on misjudgment of what you supposedly consumed. And what’s worst, every request that a citizen puts forward to those excessive charges is the answer in 99% of cases that you don’t even have will never be right.

President Laurentino Cortizo: Electricity services in Panama are still an administrative concession. That is, The state can reform and challenge. Get bigger. Give good news to the country. Tell Naturgy that this increase is not working. That the Ministry of Economy and Finance fulfill its role, exhaustively, and audit these pirate and private companies, because it will most likely be found that they declare it as a profit or dividend on The state is a guava, a charity. Law 6 from 1997, which regulates this entire issue generators, traders and distributors of electricity, inevitably and without delay, must be replaced by a new, comprehensive text, which states that it is the state that will direct, implement, determine, etc. prices, etc. of everything related to the production, commercialization and distribution of electricity.

How long will the robbery last generators and distributors? Let’s think about the well-being of Panamanians, I repeat, either we will pay for electricity or our children won’t eat and won’t go to school. God bless the country!