In the midst of internal hearings were held to raise rates

In the middle of New pressure from Kirchnerism to replace the Minister of Economythe Government should hold next week the hearings it has already convened to raise the rates of nationwide gas and electricity to AMBA, for the second time in yearsand define the removal of subsidies to the sector with the highest purchasing power.

Each It will start at 10 am from May 10 to 12 and will take place mostly through the Webex platform.. Last night it was not confirmed whether Martín Guzmán will participate in the call. From Kirchnerism, they demand that he lead them and be the public face of that proposal approved by the IMF.

In March, users of gas and electricity services there was a 20% increase in the charge for each service. And now, in June, there will be new increases, which for most of the census are between 17 and 21.5%. That would be the impact for 80% of clients, who don’t pay the social rate or are from high -income sectors. Increments will vary based on service and revenue.

Beneficiaries of the gas social rate will not experience any increase, and Edenor and Edesur clients with social protection will have to pay a 6%increase. Those with high incomes will pay full rate, with increases of up to 200% depending on your geographical location and income, a flat can start at $ 314,000 per household.

The energy ministry called hearings in mid -April at Guzmán’s request. The Minister of Economy has committed to the Fund to reduce energy subsidies, indicating an increase in tariffs. But that mission faced some complications.

In the first place, rising fuel prices forced larger gas imports and increased subsidies. Another factor of impact is the interior in the energy area, where Kirchnerism regulates the regulatory entities for electricity and gas (ENRE and ENARGAS), whose signature is key to tolerating increases.

The first hearing is to determine the price of natural gas at the Point of Entry to the Transportation System (PIST), beginning June 1. The second will set new Seasonal Price of Electric Energy (PEST) values, also from June 1. And the latter is the segmentation of subsidies and electricity expenditure, under the orbit of two regulators.

To implement the changes, the Government it needs to build a database that allows determining who will retain or not the subsidies. Along these lines, different criteria were proposed (geographical and socioeconomic), but the expected results were not achieved with the re-registration that began in November to confirm ownership of the services.

The bell added 400,000 users and reached a total of 1,250,000 million customers of Edenor and Edesur with updated data. however, more than 1 million have not re -registered. “Obviously this is not a success, we still don’t know how to do the segmentation and the changes will be applied to charge it correctly,” an official source said.