00:00And now we go to Honduras as the president Xiomara Castro declared that energy was a human right and that
00:06the government would guarantee through a subsidy that more than half a million poor households wouldn't pay for energy. This
00:13meant enormous relief due to the high cost of electricity bills in the country. This program is now canceled. Gerardo
00:20Torres-Zalaya with the details on this topic.
00:24The Honduran government has ended the energy subsidy that allowed more than half a million poor households to not pay
00:30for electricity in the program that former Honduran president Xiomara Castro called energy as a human right.
00:40We fed up with the men. This is a government only for the 12 families, for FACUS families, for those
00:46families who only look out for themselves and they are interests. They don't care about the people. It's not like
00:52with Xiomara who care about the poor and help them.
00:55I didn't pay anything for electricity for four years and now I'm going to pay 1,200 lemperes. This president
01:02is unbearable. Things are too expensive. Salaries aren't enough anymore. What you earn is going in seconds.
01:09The current government claims that ending the subsidy is part of an austerity policy. However, through concessions and tax breaks
01:17granted to large corporations, the state loses 100 times more revenue than it could collect by charging the poorest citizens
01:25for electricity.
01:29This is frank with the so-called austerity policies followed by these conservative governments, such as the case of Honduras,
01:37which on the one hand, upon entering government, approved tax restrictions for 105 companies for more than 4 billion lemperes
01:50and grant the tax amnesty to large companies in our country.
01:55And on the other hand, reduce everything related to the social policies. In this specific case, subsidies that go to
02:03the poorest people in the country.
02:05They go to the poorest people in the country.
02:10Electricity is no longer a human rights in Honduras. Poor families will have to decide between buying food or paying
02:16their energy bill.
02:17For Tele Sur in English, from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Gerardo Torres Zelaya.
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