The privatized electricity companies had a year of million-dollar profits in 2023. This is demonstrated by their financial statements presented where they indicate profits of $79,732 million in 2023 by Edesur and $48,371 million by Edenor. With the new increases that the government wants to impose of 150% increase and monthly update, a household with “reasonable consumption” will spend $40,000 per month on electricity and gas.
For Edesur, whose owners are the Italian company Enel (owner of 70% of the shares), the income recorded during 2023 reached $492,223 million. Milei had promised more benefits to the CEO of the Italian company, Flavio Cattaneo, before his trip to Davos. Enel’s main shareholder is the Italian State, whose prime minister, the far-right Giorgia Meloni, is an admirer of Mussolini and shares an ideology with Milei.
One of the main causes of the company’s positive financial result is due to two agreements that Edesur had signed in December 2022 with the Government of Alberto Fernández. One of the agreements recognized the company $5,405 million in total income from electricity consumption in popular neighborhoods between January and December 2021.
In March of last year, the National Electricity Regulatory Entity (ENRE) decreed the company’s intervention for 180 days, following interruptions in the electrical service it suffered during the heat waves that occurred that summer and which harmed 180,000 customers. This month, Edesur was once again in the eye of the storm, after the explosion of a substation, which left 60,000 Caballito users without power for four days.
For Edenor, there was a 130% increase in the price of its shares in dollars, which went from 7 to 16 dollars per share during 2023. The company has among its owners José Luis Manzano, a former Justicialist deputy for Mendoza, who had declared himself an optimist. with the new Government: “if Milei’s economic policy can be implemented, it has all the conditions to provoke massive investment.” Manzano currently lives in Switzerland with his family for some time.
Its other owners are Mauricio Filiberti, nicknamed the King of Chlorine, who owns the Attila, a 64-meter superyacht that the owner of Transclor has anchored in the Mediterranean; and Daniel Vila, the businessman who owns the América media group, a recognized “massista.”
Privatized with terrible service for its users but with juicy profits for its owners
Through ENRE Resolutions No. 118/2024, No. 125/2024 and No. 126/2024, the National Electricity Regulatory Entity applied new sanctions to EDENOR and EDESUR for repeated anomalies in matters of electrical safety on public roads and for various breaches in the quality of commercial service. The total amount of the fines amounts to $267,096,414.84.
Also through Resolution No. 118/2024, this National Entity sanctioned EDENOR after having detected 29 anomalies contrary to electrical safety on public roads, and verified in inspections that were carried out between January and April 2023.
Both companies are electricity distributors in the AMBA, with almost 6 million users. Although their reports for their shareholders show 85% approval among their users, we know that the anger against these companies is widespread. After years of disinvestment, the service is getting worse with power outages that last several days, affecting merchants who lose their merchandise and neighbors who are forced to endure high temperatures without electricity and be left without water and elevators in their buildings.
The different governments have subsidized huge profits and forgiven million-dollar debts. Now Milei promises rates of more than 150% for April, more profits for foreign companies and billionaires at the expense of our pockets, and terrible service.
It is necessary to expropriate and nationalize these privatized companies and put them under the management of their workers and users to provide an economical and efficient service according to our needs and not in favor of their profits.
* The research was carried out by the Economic Observatory of students and graduates of the FCE – UBA.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
