A proposal currently being processed in the Chamber of Deputies aims to use a budget fund that finances electricity sector policies to combat irregular consumption, that is, illegal connections to the energy grid – the popular “gato”.
This is the 3.419 / 2021 Bill, by deputy Áureo Ribeiro (Solidariedade-RJ), who suggests this use for the CDE (Energy Development ).
Created in 2002, also by federal law, the CDE is a sectoral charge aimed at promoting energy development in Brazil, under the financial and operational responsibility of CCEE (Electricity Trading Chamber).
Resources are collected through annual quotas set by the ANEEL (National Electric Energy Agency), paid by agents that sell energy, who in turn include and charge this amount in the tariffs of the distribution systems.
The purposes of the CDE include granting tariff discounts to low-income s or those in rural areas, funding energy generation in isolated systems, compensating concessionaires, encouraging the subsidy program for the expansion of the natural gas network, among others.
The project signed by Ribeiro proposes that the fund should “provide resources to compensate for the effects of unbilled electricity consumption in locations with severe operational restrictions, where there are risks to the physical integrity of employees or outsourced workers of concessionaires and licensees of public distribution services in the exercise of activities to combat irregular consumption of electricity”.
Ribeiro justifies that the matter “aims to mitigate the losses generated by this illicit act (the cat), compensating for the effects of unbilled electricity consumption in locations with severe operational restrictions”.
It also argues that employees of concessionaires, licensees and inspection and control bodies of the electrical system are threatened and attacked when they carry out efforts to combat these illegal connections.
The proposal, however, did not gain the of the current rapporteur, congressman Joaquim arinho (PL-PA), whose opinion was for rejection in the Chamber's Mines and Energy Committee.
“There is no doubt about its relevance, as it sheds light on the worrying socioeconomic and public safety situation in the context of the electricity sector. However, the Bill is not timely, as it incorporates more subsidies to be paid by Brazilian consumers via tariff charges into the sectoral fund, and is not convenient for the arrangement of regulation by incentives in force in the electricity distribution sector in Brazil,” said the rapporteur.
In this ime between author and rapporteur, the project was put on the agenda at last board meeting, but Congressman Hugo Leal (PSD-RJ) asked for a review and suspended the assessment. The Mines and Energy Committee is only expected to meet again on the 26th.
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