São Paulo once again suffered the chaos of a power outage, the consequence of a new extratropical cyclone: around 800,000 properties, or more than 2 million people without electricity for days. Health units without electricity, elderly people stuck in houses without elevators, food spoiling, losses for traders, traffic collapse due to signaling failures. The list of damages is long and poses real risks for the lives of populations. But the complaint channels, whether through Procon or the company itself, Enel, seem harmless.
The dealer does not seem to understand the real extent of the problem, even if it does not surprise him: in recent years, these dramatic episodes have been recurring without interruption. The justifications, almost naive, accuse “atypical” climatic phenomena, while any child today learns at school that the changes are here to last – and will become stronger and stronger.
In a press release, the company says that to return to normal, it is necessary to “rebuild the network” and even “reroute kilometer cables”. It can be said that providing energy in a metropolis like São Paulo, with a historically obsolete urban infrastructure, is not easy. Enel accuses São Paulo city hall of lack of tree pruning. But, to obtain such a concession, would it not have been at least necessary to require the modernization of the system and the burying of all the wiring? Or what is being done here are half-hearted concessions, content to guarantee rich profits to the winning companies?
The authorities’ reactions to the chaos include millionaire fines and a possible judicial suspension of the concession extension; or the recommendation of the Federal Court of Auditors in favor of federal intervention in the capital of São Paulo, also requested by Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) and Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans). Regulatory agencies are powerless and “demand explanations”. But the truth lies in the symptomatic title of a report of Leaf: “The authorities are playing a pressure game on the blackout” (12/12).
When we see the total failure of businesses and the State, it becomes clear that the problem lies in the urban services management model that the country adopted around thirty years ago.
Perhaps it is time to carry out a technical evaluation of the concession system, under the supervision of so-called “regulatory” bodies. The observation is clear: it is not working, and we are already on the verge of total collapse.
At the time, the policy was presented in an attractive way: instead of leaving complex services like energy, sanitation, public transport, roads, etc. to a supposedly inefficient State (wouldn’t it be a question of allocating adequate investments there?), it would be much more rational to entrust them to private sector companies, which would act more quickly under the reassuring control of such “regulatory agencies”.
However, this reasoning presented two problems: because these are companies that depend on profit (even at the cost of high public subsidies), it is very difficult to force them to provide quality service throughout the territory, especially in low-income regions, which generate less profitability (in the case of energy, the problem is even more “democratic”, because it affects the entire city). Thus, regulatory agencies were created, supposed to guarantee efficient service for all. And this is where the second problem arises: believing that in Brazil, for various historical reasons, the public authorities would actually have this regulatory capacity.
Today there is evidence that this is not the case. Concession problems and lack of regulation are recurrent in all services. And, in urban centers, they combine with the frenzied action of construction, which accelerates the problems. All with regulations so lenient that it seems everyone does what they want.
While new climatic phenomena will not stop, either Brazil begins to truly reflect on its past options and relies on a radical change in city management, or we will have to face increasingly serious and frequent tragedies.
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