Remove politics from power sector

[NewsWhore]

Lawyer Marisol Vicens is recommending that the government depoliticize its decisions regarding the electricity sector. In a feature in El Caribe, she points out that the government has lost two years in starting to resolve the power problems, and that on the contrary, many actions that have been taken have weakened the sector's fragile institutionalism even further. She says that the Adam Smith firm hired by the government for a new diagnosis of the sector, concluded what others have said in the past. Their conclusions included the separation of politics from decision-making regarding the electricity sector. She says that in the name of politics, several questionable contracts have been signed, to the heat of electoral urgencies, and the nation has not been able to end the culture of non-payment and theft of energy or establish a strong and independent regulatory organization whose decisions are based on the law, and which does not bend to the tune of politics. She says there has been an apparent resistance to taking such decisions.
She points out that the present authorities decided to bet on new contracts for purchase of power calling for the construction of coal plants and presented this as the big solution. She points out that their construction has not yet started, and mentions that there have been complaints that these contracts have been awarded in similar terms to the much criticized older contracts, that are still waiting to be renegotiated to rid them of over generous privileges.

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