Indarsingh tells T&TEC: Reject new electricity rates

COUVA South MP Rudranath Indarsingh called on the TT Electricity Commission (T&TEC) to reject proposed electricity rate increases from the Regulated Industries Commission (RIC). He also called on T&TEC to recover what he claimed was $1.4 billion owed to it by several state agencies.

Indarsingh made these calls in a statement issued after a protest by a group of Couva residents against the proposed increases on Wednesday.

"I am calling on the Board of Commissioners at T&TEC to reject the economically abominable proposals being made by the RIC."

He said, "There is a growing concern about the impact that increased electricity rates will have on vulnerable single-parent households, senior citizen households and low income families."

Indarsingh asked what T&TEC has done to collect outstanding monies owed to it and how successful has the commission been in those efforts.

"It also begs the question as to whether the Cabinet has since mandated all agencies owing T&TEC to expedite payments for the amounts owed."

He criticised comments made by RIC chairman Dawn Callender during a television interview about people consider using less lights at Christmas time to save on their electricity bills.

"She is singing from the same PNM hymnbook as MP Keith Scotland, who advised persons to revert to cooking in "coal pots" since his Government raised the cost of gas, and other Government ministers haughtily scoffing at the use of air conditioning by the public."

Indarsingh urged other groups who disagreeD with the proposed increased electricity rates to let the Government know of their disagreement.

The RIC announced the proposed rates at a news conference on October 19.

Depending on usage, the new rates for 2023/24 will increase between 15 and 64 per cent for residential customers.

While the complete list of changes will become mandatory to T&TEC from November 1 (Wednesday), RIC officials on October 18 said T&TEC would have the autonomy to manage the transition process in billing cycles in the way it believed was most apt.

They also said while the RIC announced the new rates, T&TEC can set the price wherever it chooses, once it is lower than the rates given. The rates given by the RIC are a price ceiling. The RIC has increased rates between 37 and 51 per cent for small businesses (B1) and ten and 12 per cent for larger businesses (B2), paying commercial rates.

If implemented at the maximum rate, Callender said on October 19, T&TEC can expect a 50 per cent increase in revenue collected over the next year, moving from annual revenues of $3.2 billion to $4.8 billion.

Addressing the proposed increase in electricity rates at a post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann's on October 26, the Prime Minister said, "There is still going to be a significant subsidy on electricity in this country.”

While some people can shout loudly and refuse to pay the new rates, Dr Rowley said that was an option for them.

"But of course, at the end of the day, the commission would have done its work and made recommendations to the Government."

Cabinet, Rowley continued, would look at the RIC's recommendations and determine which recommendations were acceptable and the level to which they would be implemented.

He said electricity in TT "is still among the cheapest and is still a cheap product to the people of TT."

Rowley reiterated that T&TEC was challenged to pay for the natural gas it receives from the Natural Gas Company to provide electricity to the public.

"T&TEC owes billions of dollars for the gas that it burns to provide the electricity."

Rowley said people needed "to stop pretending that is not so."

He added that if more had to be paid for electricity "stop pretending that this is the sky falling on our head."

After saying commercial enterprises are in the business of making profits, Rowley said, "It is unrealistic for such entities to say to the Government, so that I can make my profit, you will have to subsidise it."

Rowley said he would ask Public Utilities Minister Marvin Gonzales to talk to T&TEC and other utility companies to place the real cost and subsidised costs for providing their services to be placed on their customers' bills.

He said that would allow people "to see exactly what you were getting as against the old talk from people, some of them who know better and will encourage you to rant and rave and misbehave."

Rowley reiterated that if people saw the real and subsidised costs on their utility bills, they would have no excuse "to be misled by people who will lead you astray."