Enel’s Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI), at the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo (Alesp), heard, this Tuesday morning (21), the prosecutor Silvio Marques. At the end of the session, in an interview with journalists, Marques stated that the Public Ministry of São Paulo (MPSP) can present actions against Enel, through the Public and Social Heritage Prosecutor’s Office of the Capital, of which it is part, and the Prosecutor’s Office of Consumer.
“If there is proof of omission and poor provision of services provided for in the contract, the MPSP (…) can take action, in terms of compensation requests for material damage to the State, for material damage to consumers, and for collective moral damage to society and consumers in general”, he stated.
Last week, the Public Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation to verify whether there was a reduction in the number of people working at Enel and whether the reduction may have impacted operations. “Apparently there was a dismissal of many employees by the company to increase profits, so we are verifying these circumstances,” he said.
Throughout this Tuesday’s session (21), the prosecutor provided clarifications mainly regarding another MPSP investigation, which deals with broken or unused telecommunications wires installed on poles in São Paulo, and detailed a project to ground the cables in the capital, which the City of São Paulo must present.
The prosecutor said that the technical part of the proposal should be ready by the end of the month and argued that the municipal administration enacts a law to deal with the issue. “There are charges that have to be made by the municipality, there are rules that must be followed in the processing of the entire executive project and the collection of the respective amount”.
For the prosecutor’s office, the city must have a clear source of resources to fund the proposal. “To give you an idea, a linear kilometer costs R$7 million. And this amount cannot be fully charged to the taxpayer nor fully to the municipality of São Paulo, or to the municipalities interested in this type of project. So it has to be something that has cost sharing”, concluded Marques and defended that the telecommunications wires be buried together with the electricity ones, so that the costs are not even higher.
Lack of clarity about time without power
After this Tuesday’s session (21), the CPI rapporteur, deputy Carla Morando (PSDB), said that one of the commission’s lines of investigation deals with a possible lack of clarity in the communication of information about the time in which the houses were left without electricity. “How much is the lack of energy consistent with what the consumer is really suffering? If this is not true, there is fraud.”
The parliamentarian stated that she must question why certain consumers do not find, on their physical bills, information about how long they were without energy. “Was there really a lack of energy in my house? And where is the reimbursement for this amount?”, she said.
Reimbursement plan
The president of the CPI, deputy Thiago Auricchio (PL), stated that the president of Enel was summoned to a new session. The company is expected to present a compensation plan by the end of the month. “By the 28th, I would present a reimbursement plan. Mainly on the issue of food and medicine,” he said.
The parliamentarian also stated that the CPI is studying the summoning of another representative from the MPSP, to deal specifically with consumer rights and defended that Procon be called to provide further clarification on how it can help consumers.
Enel’s CPI was installed in May this year, but gained strength after the blackouts recorded in São Paulo at the beginning of November. On Wednesday (22), the CPI should hear a representative from the Public Services Regulatory Agency of the State of São Paulo (Arsesp).
Source: CNN Brasil
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