Itaipú: Paraguay gave in to Brazil, improvised and hid information, says engineer

Paraguayan engineer Fabián Cáceres, former technical manager of the National Electricity Administration (Ande), questioned the Paraguayan position in Itaipú, given that throughout this government it ended up ceding on different occasions in favor of Brazil. “What was being done was not reported, a lot of information was hidden, and above all, there were too many improvisations, I hope and dream that the next government will take on this issue responsibly,” he said.

It is expected that this year Annex C of the Itaipú Treaty will be renegotiated. In this sense, the engineer pointed out that the ideal would have been for the conversations on this point to have already begun a long time ago; however, this was not done and for the former manager this represented a missed opportunity for Paraguay. “There are clear signs that this government did not know how to agree on any point,” he said in communication with the program “Así son las cosas,” broadcast by Universo 970 AM / Nación Media.

The fact that Brazil is already applying an energy tariff of US$12.67 kW, which it achieved through a unilateral reduction of 38.9%, represents a hard blow for Paraguayan interests and a bad start for the negotiations regarding the Annex. C. “I think that in the government of Mario Abdo Benítez the Itaipú flag was not raised for Paraguay, on the contrary, we ended up giving in too many opportunities,” he said.

The hopes for the country to reach a suitable agreement in the revision of the annex is the assumption of the new government in Paraguay, as well as the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil can also be positive, since in his previous governments he has had considerations with Paraguay, said the engineer.

MUST BE TAKEN WITH INTEREST

“The next government must take it with interest, it must speak to the public, it must have a road map and it must stop hiding information and stop looking at Itaipu as a black box, there is nothing to hide there, everything has to be transparent and hopefully we can know everything that was signed and agreed in relation to Itaipú,” expressed Cáceres.

The engineer regretted that during this government, information about the agreements reached in Itaipú has been hidden from the public. “In August 2022, the provisional rate was agreed, an agreement was signed that nobody knows what was signed, at the time we requested that information in a proper way and they did not give us,” he said.

The energy rate was fixed at that time at US$20.75 kW; However, a few weeks ago the Brazilian side reported a reduction, remaining at US$12.67 for 2023, this without the existence of an agreement with Paraguay and without the national authorities having informed about this unilateral decision of the neighboring country.

With information from La Nación