Silvina Batakis was sworn in as the new Minister of Economy.
The rate hike, promoted by Martín Guzmán, has taken several steps backwards and will be delayed. With the resignation of the former Minister of Economy, the vehicle he intended to use will fall: the segmentation of households by incomeapplicable throughout the national territory.
In the government will insist that higher-income families pay a higher amount for electricity and gas bills. But the criteria set by Guzmán – income of $ 350,000 a month, ownership of cars and real estate – it will be discarded and a new methodology will be used. Everything indicates that “georeferencing” will be resumed, applicable to the neighborhoods with the highest real estate value in the city of Buenos Aires, the suburbs and gated communities.
The agenda of the Secretary of Energy, Darío Martínez, continued regularly this Monday. Officials around him are also planning meetings and decisions in the coming days. In Energy, which was one of the areas most collided with former minister Martín Guzmán, there are no changes.
Although it has not been made official, Martínez esteems it will continue in his functions, like the most Kirchnerist officials, like Federico Basualdo (Undersecretary for Electricity) and Agustín Gerez (President of the Argentine Energy). Federico Bernal, controller of Enargas, who clashed with Guzmán in 2021, would also continue, but has been arriving with a lower profile for months.
“The segmentation that Guzmán was looking for it will not be used. We are working on a new model “.an official source said.
“To achieve what Guzmán agreed with the IMF, rates need to be raised by 300%. It will only generate more inflation “, the Energy Minister asked. And for this reason they postpone that definition in search of a” politically more viable “solution.
From the day he wanted to fire an official appointed by the Vice President of Energy, Martín Guzman has become a person “not grateful” for Kirchnerism. The drop in subsidies for electricity and gas tariffs wanted by the Minister of Economy was blocked by the majority of the Secretary of Energy. At the head of the resistance was Federico Basualdo, Undersecretary of Electricity, whom Guzmán wanted to overthrow but was unable to do so.
Basualdo had the support of the vice president, the Instituto Patria and La Cámpora. When Guzmán advanced with segmentation, which was the path chosen by the Executive to effect a tariff increase, Basualdo proposed the georeferencing. That is to say, apply “polygon” increases of high-valued real estate neighborhoods in the city of Buenos Aires, part of San Isidro and Vicente López, in addition to towns and gated communities.
The measure assumes that the segmentation is not applied internally. While Guzmán was promoting hearings to apply “segmentation”, Energy Secretary Martínez and Undersecretary Basualdo went to inaugurate the work inside. There they heard complaints from the governors, who did not want to apply tariff increases.
That recipe seems to have worked for them.
The fight between Kirchnerism and Guzmán over rates has been relentless. The sector that responds to the vice president has made low rates a kind of political banner that she does not intend to remove.
The government blocked the amounts of public service bills during 2020 and just raised them in 2021 (between 6% and 9%). During the past year, allocated more than 11 billion dollars to subsidize this situation, as the cost of gas and electricity is higher than what households pay for these benefits. In his initial settlement with the IMF, Guzmán was committed cut $ 3 billion from this year’s budget. To achieve this, ticket values had to be increased.
The increase in electricity and gas will be 21% for the low sectors and 42% for the medium sectors. To reduce the subsidies it was necessary to increase ticket values much more. Guzmán has entrusted this task to a person he trusts: Santiago López Osornio, Undersecretary of Strategic Planning for Energy. But the head of that official is Darío Martinez, the Secretary of Energy.
After the war in Russia, the IMF seemed to recalibrate some objectives of the program agreed with Argentina. energy subsidies they are on track to exceed $ 15 billion.
Martin Bidegaray
Source: Clarin
