AFP. The Argentine government filed a criminal complaint on Thursday against an electricity concessionaire of Italy’s Enel, following massive power outages in Buenos Aires and its periphery that sparked street protests amid the worst heat wave in more than a century.
“The report of the electricity regulator (Enre) is advancing with all the points that may be causal for the concession to be removed from the company.” This was reported by the presidential spokesperson, Gabriela Cerruti at a press conference.
The criminal complaint will reach the entire board of the company Edesur (2.5 million customers), under charges of “fraud. Also the abandonment of people and the hindrance of public services,” the head of the energy regulator (Enre), Walter Martello, said on his Twitter account.
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Edesur’s main shareholder is the Italian energy giant ENEL, which became the new concessionaire in 2008 due to the withdrawal of a Spanish firm. More than 14 million people live in the capital and its surrounding districts, integrated into a Metropolitan Area.
“We have not been notified yet. When we are, we will issue a statement,” a spokesperson for ENEL-Argentina’s Communications Department told AFP.
Cerruti assured that the analysis will be done “with due care, due to the way in which privatizations were carried out at the end of the 1990s. With a concession for almost 100 years (64 years to go). That no harm be generated to the State before international organizations.
Homes without electricity
As of noon Thursday, more than 37,000 homes were still without power. Although on Wednesday afternoon they reached 113,000, an average that has been repeated almost daily for two weeks.
Enraged neighbors come blocking streets and avenues, they demonstrated with posters against the company. Even on Wednesday they kicked the doors of an Edesur headquarters in the capital.
The heatwave hits the center of the country with 15 consecutive days of temperatures above 32 degrees Celsius. This would be the worst in more than 117 years, according to the National Meteorological System.
The crisis began with a fire at a high-voltage tower in the periphery, which on March 1 left more than 20 million people without electricity, in a country of 45 million inhabitants.