The premise that the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) functions as one more company in the electricity market, embodied in the energy reform of the previous administration, was left behind. The state giant has become the new guiding axis and decision maker within the sector’s politics, supported by the presidential objective of returning power to the productive state companies. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has turned his speech on energy matters to a constant attack on private investment, especially in the electricity sector, and to the defense of Pemex and the CFE. And behind the latter, the presence of Manuel Bartlett, its director, has played a key role in the ideological discourse of the president.
Bartlett, a former PRI militant and without a business past, conceives energy policy in the same way as López Obrador: the State must rule over all activities related to the energy market, over private businesses that involve foreign capital.
Until now, all the movements in the sector – which have come to modify secondary laws – have been aimed at recovering the market that the CFE lost in recent years, even before the energy reform. The administration has limited, incidentally, foreign investment and electricity generation with renewables.
“It is a speech that corresponds to another era and not of the country, of the world. This does not benefit anyone other than the presidential speech and that is in the short term, because, eventually, we will see generation problems, ”says Valeria Moy, the economist who directs the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO).
Bartlett, an 85-year-old politician, is one of the main critics of the energy reform. In 2013, as a senator, he voted against the approval of the biggest legislative change of the last PRI administration, pointing out that it responded to the interests of the US financial and energy corporations and that it weakened the state-owned Pemex and CFE. A speech very close to that of López Obrador’s morning conferences at the National Palace.
Dictate policies
As director of the state company, Bartlett has reinforced his role as one of the main participants in energy policy, despite not knowing in depth the technical elements of the sector, workers from the state company CFE coincide who were interviewed. “There is no one who is more in agreement and more convinced with the ideas that the president has regarding the energy market than the director Manuel Bartlett,” says a former collaborator of the current director of the company. Sources consulted affirm that in terms of electricity policy, it is the voice most listened to by the president, above Rocío Nahle, the Secretary of Energy, whose experience focuses more on oil issues.
Bartlett has become a rigid character with whom it is not easy to negotiate, says the CEO of a company who a few months ago agreed with him to negotiate the terms of some contracts as part of a presidential order. “Secretary Nahle is still seen with much more openness and without so much closure,” he said on condition of anonymity.
The close relationship between the Tabasco and Bartlett is practically a mystery. But the head of the Executive has defended that the official has opposed for more than 15 years the intention of the previous administrations to privatize the industry.
In the 30 months leading the state company, the CFE has reversed the rules of the electricity market, using the Energy Regulatory Commission (CRE) and the National Energy Control Center (Cenace), two institutions that, in In theory, they should regulate the market, but that, in recent months, they have become two arms of the national company.
“[Before] the CFE did not have public policy, with the reform it became a market participant with well-defined activities in accordance with the changes in the Constitution and was regulated by the CRE. But now there is great confusion on the part of the CFE general director, because he believes that he instructs public policy and the regulator has to do it, ”says Susana Cazorla, a former official and consultant in the sector.
In the first month of the six-year term, Bartlett sent a list of requests to modify market rules in favor of the CFE and other officials have announced agreements with Cenace to favor the company’s plants. And the changes have not stopped, the last one aimed at reforming the Electricity Industry Law, to increase the use of the commission’s plants and hinder access to private companies, which are being held in court.
The CFE has become a presidential political weapon, rather than being handled by an economic logic, specialists consulted agree. “The problem is that, a bit like a few years ago, she is wanting to take on the role of policymaker,” says Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American Energy Program at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Texas.
One of the main presidential commitments is not to increase the price of electricity and a few months ago the federal administration and the government of Tabasco agreed to cancel a historic debt of 11,000 million pesos and announced an agreement so that the people of Tabasco would be charged a fee. more low.
One more, a few months ago the CFE administration announced an agreement to reduce the retirement age from 60 to 55 years or from 30 to 25 years of service, a change that had been made in the previous six-year term to improve the liquidity of the company, which represented a financial cost of 120,000 million pesos. CFE workers affirm that the director resembles López Obrador in something more: the closeness to the workers of the state company, especially the unionized. A strong difference compared to the previous directors.
In December, Bartlett assured that the CFE is the “most powerful” company in the country and with the latest changes in the market, sector participants have little doubts.
