In my collaboration on October 5, “The irrational electricity reform, a mere provocation?” which served to comment on my first reflections on the initiative for constitutional reform in the electricity sector, which President López Obrador had presented just a week before, I anticipated the following: “… it should not surprise us that in reality it is about a perverse calculation of the president so that once the opposition’s rejection of his proposal has materialized, to build the narrative about a conservative opposition that did not want to be “on the side of the people” and that preferred to maintain a model that favors looting, “To the detriment of the good people”, although the 4T cannot seriously accredit such affirmations and under universally accepted standards … “.
I bring up the foregoing in connection with the comments that the head of the Federal Executive made yesterday in his morning conference on the warnings that the opposition bloc launched in the Chamber of Deputies against what was already practically a fact, the imminent approval of the Expenditure Budget of the Federation for the financial year 2022. Specifically, he pointed out “… if they do not approve the electricity reform, they will end up showing that they do not represent the people, that they represent foreign companies and those who have done juicy business at the under the protection of public power, they will take hold if they do not approve the electricity reform like good salinistas and they will end up turning their backs not only on General Cárdenas, but on President López Mateos … ”.
Already on track, the president insisted on the figure that he has been using to generate animosity from Mexicans towards the current legal framework that regulates the electricity industry, which an Oxxo pays. The president insists on demonizing that an Oxxo pays less for the electricity it consumes, proportionally, than what the members of a middle-class or popular-class household pay. It has already been shown to him that the rates paid by households with fewer resources in this country are really low, even lower than the rates that the Oxxo pay in the comparisons that he has used in his morning, and that the handy comparative that they have publicized him and the members of his cabinet if it is applicable only to the case of the richest households in this country, those that pay the DAC (High Consumption) rate, and that only represent 1.19% of the total of domestic users served by the CFE.
In another collaboration on the electricity reform, I also commented that throughout the world, users such as the Oxxo chain, that is, commercial users, normally pay lower rates than the rates paid by households. Only in Mexico Q4 is determined to twist the logic of rates for large users compared to rates paid by individual users of much smaller size, such as households, so that, as in other issues in which they have gotten themselves to destroy what Mexico had built up to now, invent its own logic or its alternate reality, contrary to what is commonly accepted throughout the world.
The president did not like that he was vehemently anticipated that opposition deputies will not vote in favor of his electricity reform. He insists on warning us that voting against what he proposes is going against what Presidents Cárdenas and López Mateos wanted, but are we not going to seriously debate whether what they thought 60 or 80 years ago is represents the best way for a Mexico that already faces the challenges posed by global warming and climate change in this 21st century? The issue is too serious for us to renounce the idea of having an informed, well-documented debate, with real data, the kind that neither the Ministry of Energy or the CFE of Q4 consistently publish on their Internet sites.
* The author is an economist.
@GerardoFloresR
Telecommunications expert
Economic Momentum
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx