Bolsonaro will leave inflationary bomb for the next government with pedaling on the electricity bill, says institute

​President Jair Bolsonaro will reach the last year of his term as the one who has delivered the most expensive energy to Brazilians since the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Not counting the tariff flags of water scarcity, the electricity bill under Bolsonaro has already risen 2% above inflation measured by the IPCA.

Between January 2019 and October 2021, inflation increased by 18%, while energy tariffs rose by almost twice as much, by 35%.

The calculations are by the iCS (Instituto Clima e Sociedade) and, according to physicist Roberto Kishinami, senior coordinator of Energy, they do not take into account the tariff flags and measures to circumvent the water crisis that, in an election year, will be left as a legacy for the next government.

Taking into account only the energy price structure (tariff and taxes), in average values, electricity rose 1.32% above the IPCA during the eight years of Lula’s government; 1.1% over the 5.7 years in the administration of former president Dilma Rousseff; 2.4% under Michel Temer (2.3 years) and 2% in Bolsonaro’s 2.3 years.

However, in the calculations, all tariff flags and extra costs from previous administrations were included, which did not happen with Bolsonaro, who, according to iCS estimates, will leave a liability of more than R$140 billion to be passed on to consumers in 2023. – which should put you in front.

In a debate promoted by iCS this Monday, experts said that Bolsonaro’s “pedaling” in the electricity sector will leave an inflationary bomb for the next government, when the electricity bill will incorporate loans to concessionaires, subsidies and contracts for the purchase of energy. more expensive, produced by fossil fuels and pollutants, which still contributes to aggravating climate change.

“We are talking about a bill that only grows, and by the last calculation we made, this bill was at R$ 140 billion to be paid in the future”, said Amanda Ohara, energy coordinator at iCS. “After that, a bigger loan was approved than was expected to the distributors.”

For experts, the weight of this policy will be greater for the poorest families.

“For the richest, the bill, even rising more than inflation, does not compromise family income,” said Roberto Kishinami. “This scenario is even more dramatic because the record increase in the weight of the electricity bill takes place at a time when the country stopped growing and unemployment increased.”

According to economist Paula Bezerra, PhD in energy planning from Coppe-UFRJ, the richest 10% of Brazilians consume 2.5 times more energy than the poorest 10%. For the more affluent, the account represents 2% of the family budget. Among the less favored, it reaches 12%, a scenario that is expected to get even worse with the approval of the law that opened the market for distributed generation, a mechanism that allows the installation of solar panels or generating units in each household with the forecast of abatement on the bill. if the expenditure is less than the production of each household.

“With fewer users contributing to the integrated system, there will be fewer people to share the costs, precisely the poorest”, said Luiz Barata, former director of the ONS (National Electric System Operator) and now a consultant.

This scenario should make the recovery of the economy even more difficult, “because the account drains families’ budgets in a way that leaves no slack to return consumption and boost the economy.”

Therefore, in the opinion of the technicians, the next government will have to review the policy of stimulating expensive energy produced by fossil fuels –such as the hiring of thermoelectric plants–, stimulate energy efficiency to increase the competitiveness of the economy and adopt a more progressive tariff in the energy so as not to suffocate the poorest families even more.

The effects of this situation are already perceptible in the sector’s default, another record of the Bolsonaro government. Data from Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency) indicate that 39.43% of Brazilians have delayed their bill for at least one month, the highest index in the historical series since 2012, according to Clauber Leite, a consultant at Idec (Brazilian Institute for Consumer Protection). ).

“When you have 40% of consumers struggling to pay the bill, there’s a problem with the economy, with the business model,” said Kishinami.