The new mechanism for allocating subsidies for energy used by households will take one to two months in relation to the provisions of the Government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Basic Energy Basket (CBE) may only be operational in June or July.
According to the multiple sources consulted by ClarionRegulators in provinces and municipalities across the country have not yet sent user data to the Ministry of Energy, with which the nation will need to cross-check property, assets, income, consumption, travel and other basic information .
There are few exceptions. Among these, the distributors Edenor and Edesur have complied with the official request; also the companies of La Pampa and Tucumán, at least, according to what official sources confirmed to this newspaper. The sum of electricity distributors and cooperatives in Argentina exceeds 700 companies.
The implementing decree of the basic energy basket will soon be published in the Official Journal. However, Its actual implementation could take beyond Mayterm that appears in staff report of the IMF. This is what government sources report.
Furthermore, they ensure in the corridors of official offices that They will “test for a couple of months” the CBE scheme. Currently, 70% of households pay only between 5% and 7% of the wholesale price of energy; the rest is subsidized across the country, uniformly.
What is the Basic Energy Basket and how is it applied?
The baskets will be composed assuming a rational and efficient energy consumption electricity and natural gas through the network of each home depending on the number of cohabitants, the bioclimatic region in which they are located and each month of the year.
The government plans to allocate subsidies only to families that spend more than 10% of their income on energyand it will cover the difference from that 10%.
For example: if the total number of cohabitants earns 1,000,000 dollars per month, their electricity and gas consumption up to 100,000 dollars will remain without state aid. On top of this there will be the subsidy, as long as the bills correspond to what the government considers rational consumption and not a waste of energy.
One variable under study is that for the 40% of the most vulnerable population (deciles 4 to 1, according to Indec), coverage begins when rates exceed 8%, 6%, 4% and 2% of income respectively.
But, at the same time, there are also dozens of exclusion criteria such as having purchased dollars or another foreign currency in the last 3 months, having used an advance payment not related to a job in a dependent relationship, having traveled abroad in a non-neighboring country in the last 5 years and with a car or motorbike less than 5 years old, among many others.
Added to the complexity of cross-referencing millions of data with the bases of the AFIP, the BCRA, the Anses, the automotive registers and the Superintendence of Health Services, among other bodies, is a possible clash with tax secrecy. Moreover, The very high rate of informal employment (which in the country is around 50%) makes it difficult to estimate the real income of families.
Similarly, in the electricity sector, campaigns aimed at users to change ownership of bills and put them in their name have had no effect. There are millions of users who continue to have tickets registered to the owners of the property, former tenants, deceased people or who have indicated a low-income pensioner as the owner.
The central idea of the Government is reduce public spending on energy subsidies, which last year reached the equivalent of 9,683 million dollars or 1.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The objective is to reach 1.1% of GDP, but with strong rate increases the decrease could go much further.
Source: Clarin
