Eduardo Saljuana: Allocation of funds for the maintenance of the Odebrecht pipeline “is the responsibility of the state”

Last Tuesday, a controversy arose on social networks between the chairman of the parliamentary budget committee, Jose Moonand Minister of Economy, Alex Contreras, following the opinion additional credit in the amount of SGD 8,200 million as part of the economic recovery.

In this regard, a tweet by the Ministry of Economics (MEF) pointed to the request of the head of the sector to the said committee of Congress to approve the aforementioned bill, to which Congressman Podemos replied that the opinion of the executive branch includes “the delivery of S / 123 million for the care of pipes belonging to debrechtdespite serious allegations of corruption.”

“In addition, he introduced an article in Congress authorizing the provision of subsidies Petroper And Repsol without legislative oversight, through the Fuel Petroleum Price Stabilization Fund (FEPC), an initiative that is not very transparent. Peru has already paid more than $12 billion to these companies since 2014. Jose Luna.

“Government made a commitment”

Faced with this situation, APP congressman, Eduardo Saluana, also member of the Budget Committee, in dialogue with RPP Newspointed out that the State had committed itself to maintaining the pipes South Peru Gas Pipelinea consortium made up of debrecht.

“The issue of S/123 million for the storage of pipes of the Southern Gas Pipeline is obligation which Peru adopted in 2017 by a supreme decree,” he explained.

“Peru has a guardianship not by chance, but because the Peruvian government made a commitment at the time,” he added.

In this sense, the parliamentarian pointed out that Peru already has two lawsuits in the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and that it would be disadvantageous for the country not to assume contractual obligations.

“Right now, Peru has two demands before ICSID. One for $570 million and the other for $1.2 billion. Peru, in case of failure to comply with the legal and regulatory responsibility that it is supposed to protect these assets, has a high probability of losing these claims in ICSID, these arbitrations, and this will lead to huge costs that all Peruvians are going to pay,” he stressed.

For this reason, as he pointed out, the congressmen of the commission “with a high sense of responsibility” voted for the resolution and expressed the hope that the same would happen in the plenary session.

With regard to subsidies for Petroper And Repsol, saluana He pointed out that this is an “important fund” that prevents a rise in hydrocarbon prices.

“I believe that if this fund had not had the necessary resources during the oil crisis (…), prices would have skyrocketed much more than we had. I think this is an important fund. there may be objections, but, no doubt, this helped to ensure that prices did not rise disproportionately,” he said.

“So I think it’s appropriate for Congress to reach out to him because the issue of the hydrocarbon emergency has not passed. Peru continues to be a net importer of hydrocarbons, because over the past 10 years we have not explored and we do not have large reserves,” he added.