In 20 years, the subsidiaries of Eletrobrás have accumulated losses of 22 billion reais

BRASÍLIA – The six distributors of Eletrobrás that the government plans to privatize on July 26 have accumulated a loss of R $ 22.3 billion since 1997, when the Union temporarily took control of these companies with the intention of selling them to private initiative.

Last week, the Federal Supreme Court Minister (STF), Ricardo Lewandowski, withdrew from the bidding process, the Alagoas (Ceal) distributor. the dispute until the state and the federal government include a refund that the state government claims to be entitled to receive. In Congress, it is still necessary to vote on the bill that resolves disputes with distributors in the North, mainly Amazonas Energia.

Distribution was never an activity of Eletrobrás, but ended up being "finished" for the company 20 years ago, when the federal government renegotiated and badumed the debts States. In return, under the terms of the agreement, states should privatize their distributors. It was a successful business for many of them, in the case of São Paulo, Rio and Espírito Santo. The operation gave birth to companies like Eletropaulo, CPFL, Light and Escelsa

Distributors staying at Eletrobrás were the ones who could not be sold. From the beginning, the federalization of the companies had to be a temporary situation. The plan was for Eletrobrás to promote improvements in the companies so that they could be privatized in a moment. The auctions of Ceal, Alagoas and Cepisa, Piauí, in 1998 and 2000, failed due to lack of interested parties.

Losses Even outside the hands of states, distributors continued to be heavily influenced by politicians and had held party-to-party positions for many years. According to BNDES calculations, in 20 years, retailers consumed R $ 22.3 billion. In 1966, the shareholders of Eletrobrás decided not to renew the concessions of the distributors and, in 1966, the shareholders of Eletrobrás decided not to renew the concessions of the distributors. Since then, Eletrobrás has been acting as a temporary service provider to maintain service in these states.

The combination was that the company would not use more resources to play the distributors. As a result, the National Electric Power Agency (ANEEL) has authorized increases of more than 10% in consumer tariffs served by companies. In addition, in almost two years they have consumed about R $ 4.5 billion in subsidized loans.

With negative equity (debts much higher than its infrastructure), the distributors will be sold for R $ 50,000, a symbolic amount. Business workers, a contingent of more than six thousand people, fear losing jobs when there is stock exchange control. The average salary paid by distributors is R $ 11.7 million, almost triple the average of private sector companies.