Although the government postponed the application of the indexation mechanism scheduled for May, the next gas bills will arrive with increases of around 500% in residential areas and in businesses and industries the increase will be greater than 1,000%, in relation to what that users paid last year. In this scenario, the Ministry of Economy decided to postpone the increases planned in recent months so that it does not impact inflation and the index continues to decelerate.
As cited by the site Iprofessional A report prepared by the consulting firm Economía y Energía, the next gas bills will arrive with increases of over 500% in the year-on-year comparison for high-income residential users, while in the case of businesses and industries the increase will be more than 1,000 %. These increases could be even greater in the winter period, given that the government authorized two fare tables at the Pist (Entry Point to the Transportation System), one for summer and another for winter.
In the case of residential homes, according to the report, the monthly increase would represent a 20% jump compared to the previous bill.
The study also revealed that with the increases in this service in the first months of the year, it left rates at levels close to those of 2019, after the increases under Mauricio Macri’s management. In the case of low- and middle-income users, they still maintain a large part of the subsidized cost.
In this context, after the surplus reported on the public accounts for the first quarter, the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, announced the postponement of the increases planned for May, with the reason, he said, of burdening the middle class with more expenses. .
Gas bills are made up of four items: generation cost, transportation, distribution and, on top of that, taxes (national, provincial and municipal) are applied. The government covers with subsidies the difference between the price of extracting gas and what different users pay.
Currently, there is a subsidy scheme that divides residential users into 3 segments: Level 1 (high income) who pay fully, Level 2 (low income) with a social rate and Level 3 (middle income) with a subsidized consumption cap.
At the end of April, the government announced that it was postponing the increases in electricity and gas rates planned for this month. The objective is to maintain the path of deceleration in inflation, which in April will once again be in the single digits, according to private consultants.
As of May 1, it was stipulated that the monthly indexation mechanism defined by the Ministry of Energy be applied, to avoid a delay in real terms against inflation. But, the government decided to kick it forward
In this scenario, the regulatory entities, both Enre and Enargás, did not publish the tariff tables corresponding to the month of May, after the strong increases applied during the first four months, which reached 200% in electricity and more than 300% in gas. To this adjustment, in Amba we add water, which rose 209%, and public transportation, which rose 410%. In Rosario, since the change of government on December 10, the fare rose 378%.
Staircase and elevator
The transport companies of public services had to begin to apply monthly indexation in their rates, which would translate into an increase in the bills that users receive: they are tied to the evolution of salaries, inflation and other variables.
The increases in these formulas ranged between 10% and 12.5%, which would imply an increase of close to 5% in the final invoices that users receive. But, although companies had already been notified of how much the increase in May would be, the decision whether or not to apply this increase depended on the Ministry of Economy. And, finally, Caputo decided not to increase the rates in May, whose implementation coincided with Labor Day, when the CGT took to the streets, and had already launched a national strike for this Thursday the 9th. Added to these protests was the massive national concentration for the budget for universities and public education, with replicas in all the cities of the interior.
