Nicaragua Leader Declares Energy Emergency
May 30 - Associated Press/AP Online
President Enrique Bolanos issued an emergency decree Monday, allowing him to raise electric prices as demanded by producers.
Bolanos said he hoped to ensure that Nicaragua "does not return to the
dark night," a barbed reference to the frequent power outages of the 1980s,
when the left-wing Sandinista government was in power.
Bolanos took the unusually dramatic move in response to energy producers who
have been calling for rate increases to offset their rising costs. His
government had been unable to meet those demands because the official commission
that sets the prices has no director and therefore cannot act officially.
At the same time, opposition groups in Congress have blocked all attempts to
name a director of the commission, so it has remained unable to change
electricity rates. The decree allows Bolanos to act without the panel's
approval. However, he must submit the decree to the opposition-dominated
legislature within 72 hours for approval.
His decree imposes a near 12 percent increase in electricity prices for
consumers of more than 150 kilowatts a month, which he said affected only 25
percent of the population. Prices for other consumers would remain the same.
Bolanos said he would also adopt measures to ensure that the country complies
with its agreement with the International Monetary Fund, saying that without
international financial cooperation, "the country would enter into
chaos."
Leaders of the two main parties, the Sandinistas and the Constitutionalist
Liberals, have been steadily trimming Bolanos' powers and foreign aid donors
have expressed alarm at the confrontation.
"I hope that they approve it, because if they reject it, it would damage
the country," Bolanos said. Visit http://www.powermarketers.com/index.shtml
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