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Someone managed to generate political polarization around the heat, and it was not the typical Twitter discussion between the winter band and the summer band. Horacio Rodríguez Larreta came out to oppose the measure taken by the national government to save energy, for which in the two days of extreme temperatures, public employees who can work from home will not go to their offices. “We cannot prevent them from going to work,” said the head of government, as he did not adhere to the decision of the national government. From the PRO, as the only solution, it proposes to raise rates exponentially, in line with the privatized companies.
On the way to the 2023 elections, any issue seems to be good for generating polarization. It was the policy towards the pandemic in 2020, vaccines, schools, and also the Budget, the fiscal pact and even a meeting to discuss the situation with the IMF. In all cases, Larreta found a way to differentiate himself. Faced with the heat wave, the national government ordered that state employees who can perform the same tasks from home do not go to work. The spirit is to decrease the use of energy so that the system does not collapse. Along the same lines, the Government worked on the private sector so that they do not overexpose the use of energy until the heat wave passes, at the end of this week (see separate).
It is a measure for 48 hours, but Larreta once more managed to make a difference. The head of government rejected the possibility of doing something similar with Buenos Aires public employees. “The vast majority of us are dedicated to caring for the pandemic. We can’t make them not go to work”, He stated following the Edenor power outages that left 700,000 users without power this week.
The head of government did not offer any alternative, simply assured that “the priority” is for public employees to work these two days. He insisted that he has many workers dedicated to “the testing centers, where we have 50 thousand people per day, in vaccination, in which we are over 30 thousand vaccines that we apply and in the UFUs.” “We also have the summer school, the sports centers, with almost 40 thousand boys in the holiday camps. We cannot loosen. Our priority today is in caring for the pandemic and we are all working there”, Insisted Larreta, in the presentation in society of his new Secretary of Sports, Carlos” Chapa “Retegui, who arrived in the middle of a negotiation with the radicals (see separate).
There was no further information on whether the City would take any measure to save energy, so hopefully there will not be. Up to now, From the PRO, the only solution they proposed to the energy situation is to raise rates, as Mauricio Macri did during his government (in which there was in 2019 one of the biggest blackouts in the history of the country). Macri, in fact, a few days ago tried to lead the protests, but they ridiculed him on Twitter. María Eugenia Vidal tried to do the same. Juan José Aranguren was even encouraged to return to ask for massive rate increases: “There is no higher rate than the one that means not having electricity”, philosophized the former Minister of Energy of Macri.
Larreta did not say anything, nor did he provide an energy saving alternative. He only showed himself once morest the measures, and that’s it. In the Buenos Aires government, they stressed that workers facing the pandemic cannot do their tasks remotely (something that the national decree contemplated, which was only for those who might do those tasks from their homes). “They should perform the provision of services through the modality of remote work provision, if this is possible,” says the decree. It was not clear why Larreta did not implement it for those who might work remotely.
These contradictions were marked by the presidential spokesperson Gabriela Cerruti who, in the face of Larreta’s refusal, stated: “We hope that the City Government will take over the responsibility for the supply of energy in CABA and we appeal to solidarity so that it is not part of the crack. “Cerruti stressed that on issues such as heat and the responsible use of energy there should be no conflicts, but rather that” all political forces should collaborate. “On the recipes of raise rates to supposedly improve service, Cerruti recalled: “We insist on decoupling the rate increase from power outages. The companies should have made the investments with the increases granted by Macri“.
With the heat, which included historic marks in CABA, it is surprising that the desire to make energy saving controversial has not diminished, even a little.
