00:00In our information, the Honduran government is preparing to privatize the National Energy
00:05Company and the opposition Liberal Party has called on social sectors to organize a national
00:10strike to stop these plans.
00:12For Tegucigalpa, Gerardo Torres-Delaya reports.
00:16The Liberal Party urgently convened its national coordination for a meeting to confront the
00:21current government's intention to privatize the National Electric Energy Company, Ene,
00:25the largest energy company in Central America with the most assets.
00:33We as the party are calling on labor unions, professional associations, teachers' associations,
00:39student organizations, homemakers' associations, and indigenous and Afro-descendant communities
00:45to defend what wants to privatize, what costs the Honduran people dearly, what belongs to
00:52the Honduran people.
00:52The National Electric Energy Company, founded in 1957, with over $160 billion in assets,
01:03which they now want to transfer to private ownership in three separate pieces.
01:12The main stakeholders in this privatization process are the large power generation companies
01:18that already sell energy to the Honduran government at high prices.
01:22The intention is to gain control of the entire national electricity system.
01:27In Honduras, there is an energy monopoly.
01:29During Xiomara Castro's government, 20 billion lempidas were invested in infrastructure improvements
01:35that will now be transferred to private hands.
01:38NAE reports annual profits exceeding 40 billion lempidas, about $1.5 billion.
01:46The same sectors involved in the energy sector, practically the generators, have always had
01:55a very specific interest in controlling the various phases of electricity supply, generation, transmission, marketing, and distribution.
02:06This is a disguised privatization they want to carry out.
02:11They already did it with cell phone service, where concessions were granted for up to 15 years.
02:22More than one million poor families that didn't pay for electricity for four years now pay at least 1,000
02:29lempidas, about $50 monthly.
02:32And other consumers have already seen their monthly electricity bill doubled.
02:36A privatization process will generate even more increases.
02:39Libra's call is to begin mobilizations, assemblies, and rock blockades in a process of building strength
02:45that will culminate in a general strike to force the government to reverse its privatization plans.
02:57This is a call to mobilize in the streets to demonstrate our opposition to this bad government
03:02that has barely passed its first 100 days, and the people can no longer tolerate it.
03:08They have done nothing for the benefit of the people. Unemployment has worsened.
03:12Farmers are being murdered in rural areas, and laws are being passed by Congress to carry out mass evictions
03:19of farmers who live on lands that once belonged to large landowners.
03:26The Libre Party has announced that they will fight against the National Party's intention to privatize
03:31the National Energy Company, that the energy should maintain its nature as part of a human right
03:36and a defense priority asset. Libre has assured that the worst thing
03:41that could happen to the people of Honduras is that the energy company pass
03:45to be a private company.
03:47For TLC English, from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Gerardo Torres Zelaya.
