Increase in electricity rates is not due to a fuel shortage: Cuban officials

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 14 (ACN) Alejandro Gil Fernández, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning said on Sunday in Havana that the increase of the electric rate is not due to the lack fuel to produce it, but it is part of the measures of the Ordering Task where all costs of goods and service will rise

Gil Fernández responded to the doubts and concerns of the population regarding the payment of this service after the monetary and exchange rate unification takes place on January 1, 2021.

He said there is no connection between the fuel deficit and the growth of tariff, and recalled that the country is experiencing a complex economic situation and one of the that has been most pressured by the US blockade has been the availability of fuel, because "we don't always find suppliers in international markets given the sanctions, and when they do, they charge us more.

He explained that its price had decreases in 2020 due to the contraction of economic activity due to COVID-19, but as long as there is an economic recovery there will be an upward trend and will gradually recover its previous points of 2019 and 2018.

The deputy prime minister said that the 2020 estimates foresee that the residential sector will consume 9,450 gigawatt hours (a 2.5 percent increase in 2021), and that represents 62.7 percent of the total consumption of country.

In response to public concerns, he clarified that the plan does not design blackouts, but rather supports energy resources to guarantee generation levels despite restrictions.

If there were talk of restricting consumption, less would be planned, but that is not the scenario, we are projecting growth, slightly in line with what is happening in the country, without forgetting that consuming energy is quality of life too, he said.

In another moment of his appearance, also together with Liván Arronte, Minister of Energy and Mines, he referred to the imperative of saving.

Gil Fernández reminded that according to the current monetary change, the costs of generation by the electric power industry has so far expressed itself one by one in the business sector, from extracting the oil until it is transmitted, and from the Ordering Task it will be 1 (dollar) per 24 cup.

The costs are expressed in prices and we have opted for the State budget to assume cost of the most vulnerable, so incorporating more subsidies into the budget means removing money from other sectors, so that the measure adopted is more equitable and also encourages savings, which is also beneficial to the country's economy, he stressed.