Geisha Kow­lessar

A grim pic­ture of the T&T Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) was paint­ed yes­ter­day when it was re­vealed that the util­i­ty owed some $2.5 bil­lion.Mem­bers of the com­mis­sion who ap­peared be­fore the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee in Par­lia­ment in­clud­ed its deputy chair­man Aaron Hen­ry, gen­er­al man­ag­er Kelvin Ram­sook and man­agers of the var­i­ous units.

The com­mis­sion said yes­ter­day it would soon be mov­ing to in­crease elec­tric­i­ty rates as it was op­er­at­ing at a loss. The in­crease would be done in con­sul­tati­ion with the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC).The com­mit­tee was chaired by Diego Mar­tin North East MP Colm Im­bert. Chair­man of T&TEC Sushilla Ramkissoon-Mark was ab­sent.

The is­sue of debt was raised by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Dhanayshar Ma­habir, who asked how much was owed to the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny, how much of that bill was set­tled on an an­nu­al ba­sis and why was there a chron­ic deficit on the ac­counts of T&TEC.In re­sponse Ram­sook said in 2011 there was a set­tle­ment of an out­stand­ing bal­ance of $2.1 mil­lion."There was a loan arrange­ment where the NGC would pay the Gov­ern­ment, the Gov­ern­ment would send the mon­ey to us and we in turn would pay NGC.

"That loan arrange­ment is over a sev­en-year pe­ri­od at three per cent in­ter­est, ef­fec­tive from 2011," Ram­sook said.He said in 2011 and 2012 the en­tire NGC bill was paid but in 2013 there was a deficit of $292 mil­lion."The main rea­son for that is our cash­flow sit­u­a­tion. When­ev­er we fall short we hold back in pay­ing NGC," Ram­sook added.He said the com­pa­ny al­so owed some $665 mil­lion to Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed (TGC).

Ques­tions al­so arose as to whether, giv­en the cash­flow sit­u­a­tion, mon­ey was held back for plant and equip­ment.Ram­sook said work and main­te­nance were top pri­or­i­ties and the com­pa­ny did not com­pro­mise on equip­ment, main­te­nance and ma­jor con­struc­tion work.On whether T&TEC could as­sure the pub­lic it was not op­er­at­ing with out­dat­ed equip­ment, Ram­sook said there were process­es which looked at main­te­nance through­out the coun­try.

Im­bert then ques­tioned how TGU had al­lowed T&TEC to owe such an ex­or­bi­tant sum, giv­en that TGU is a pri­vate en­ti­ty."Is it just luck on the part of T&TEC?" Im­bert asked.Ram­sook said in No­vem­ber 2012 he wrote to the line min­istry and asked for a gov­ern­ment guar­an­tee to be in­voked, say­ing at that time T&TEC was on­ly able to pay some of the mon­ey.On whether the Gov­ern­ment did in fact step in to pay the debt, Ram­sook said: "I know that has not hap­pened yet and I know di­a­logue is tak­ing place, even up to re­cent­ly.

"I have re­ceived no in­di­ca­tion of any in­tent to hold back on any gen­er­a­tion. T&TEC, per se, has not paid any­thing more than the $21 mil­lion of the $22 mil­lion for 225 megawatts."On the un­der­ly­ing fac­tors which re­sult­ed in the cash­flow prob­lem, Ram­sook said the fac­tors of in­come and rev­enue must be man­aged very tight­ly. He added that the var­i­ous ex­pen­di­tures over the years would have in­creased, in­clud­ing gen­er­a­tion and labour cost.

"In terms of our in­come, there could have been no ma­jor change over the last cou­ple of years. In 2011, 2012 and 2013 there was no change in in­come."The cost of do­ing busi­ness in 2012 did in fact go up, as when we con­clud­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions we would have had to pay more salaries," Ram­sook said.Back­pay, he said, amount­ed to some $100 mil­lion.