2023-05-05 14:08:23
This Monday (April 17) the new Itaipu tariff for the year 2023 was finalized, the first renegotiation since Lula’s return to power. It contemplates a reduction in the price of energy to $16.71 kilowatt/month, and although this decrease might seem positive for Paraguay, it is actually very far from it.
By PT – Paraguay
The Brazilian PT government presents itself as ideologically opposed to the previous Bolsonaro government, but analyzing the demands that each one presented in the respective negotiations, we see a coincidence in the constant demand for a reduction in the price of the electricity rate; orientation that equals them with respect to the policy of national oppression exercised by Brazil in its sub-imperialist character to the detriment of Paraguay.
All the operations carried out by both governments on the hydroelectric plant are framed within the Itaipu treaty and this provides that Brazil and Paraguay have the right to 50% of the energy generated each, but establishes that if one of the parties does not use all of its share of the energy that corresponds to it, the other party has the right to acquire, that is, to buy the surplus from the other partner at preferential prices.
Today Paraguay only uses about 20% of the energy produced compared to 80% used by Brazil, therefore, most of the energy that corresponds to us is ceded to Brazil, and this is where we find the trap. In this way, Brazil obtains electrical energy at less than half the market price, harming the possible income that this could mean for Paraguay.
The bad thing in itself is not that the rate goes down, but that it goes down without being able to exercise our energy sovereignty and that we lose the opportunity to request, for example, greater compensation for the transfer of Paraguayan energy to Brazil. When the cost of the tariff fell from 22.6 to 20.75 kilowatt dollars/month, at the beginning of August 2022, Brazil benefited from a reduction of 230,000,000 dollars and Paraguay only with 40,000,000 dollars.
With this new agreement, the loss for Paraguay would be even greater with a saving of 486,000,000 USD for Brazil and only 105,000,000 USD for Paraguay. This is intended to be compensated with an increase in socio-environmental expenses for both parties, which is only minimally enough to address the electrical infrastructure works provided for in the ANDE master plan and not so for an improvement in the electricity rate of the working families.
As long as successive Brazilian governments, whether neoliberal right-wing like Bolsonaro’s or capitalist reformist like Lula, continue to press with all their might to pay as little as possible, the chances of taking advantage of our part for our development are increasingly scarce.
The next Paraguayan government must assume the commitment to contract the entire part that corresponds to us, that is, 50% of Itaipu’s power and energy, and export the part that we do not use locally at fair prices, either to the Brazilian market or to third parties. countries.
All sympathizers with Lula’s project and the Brazilian PT should begin to demand a policy that is consistent with leftist ideals, they cannot ignore the colonialist nature of relations between Brazil and Paraguay, nor can they continue to ignore the completely unfavorable context for our nation in which the Itaipu treaty was signed and they must admit that the main beneficiaries end up being the big capitalists installed in Brazil, getting our energy by scraps, completely ignoring the Paraguayan working class.
On the other hand, not only by changing the sign of government that we will be able to exercise our energy sovereignty, but by organizing ourselves to fight in the streets mobilized for the respect and defense of our rights and our energy sovereignty.
#Paraguay #Lula #Bolsonaro #policy #Itaipú