Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor- News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

For­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les is ques­tion­ing the le­gal­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment’s planned elec­tric­i­ty sur­charge on res­i­den­tial cus­tomers, ar­gu­ing that it con­tra­venes the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) Act.

Speak­ing at a post-Bud­get news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, the Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP called on elec­tric­i­ty cus­tomers to chal­lenge the de­ci­sion, which will im­pose an ad­di­tion­al five cents per kilo­watt-hour on res­i­den­tial con­sump­tion above 3,000 kilo­watt-hours.

The sur­charge was an­nounced by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo dur­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2027 Na­tion­al Bud­get. The Gov­ern­ment has said about 90 per cent of house­holds will re­main be­low the con­sump­tion thresh­old.

Gon­za­les ar­gued that the RIC, rather than the Gov­ern­ment, had the le­gal au­thor­i­ty to reg­u­late util­i­ty rates.

“No gov­ern­ment, no cab­i­net, as you know, we went through an ex­tend­ed process un­der the RIC. We did not in­ter­fere with it,” he said, re­fer­ring to the process un­der­tak­en dur­ing his tenure as min­is­ter.

Gon­za­les said that, while he was min­is­ter, he be­came aware of the com­mis­sion’s rec­om­men­da­tions on­ly af­ter a re­port was de­liv­ered to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

He said he took the re­port and its rec­om­men­da­tions to Cab­i­net, which then had to de­cide whether to ac­cept, re­ject or vary the pro­pos­als.

“That is the struc­ture that we have un­der the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

The is­sue of elec­tric­i­ty rates has been a point of con­tention be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the RIC.

In Au­gust 2025, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath an­nounced that Cab­i­net had for­mal­ly re­ject­ed the com­mis­sion’s rec­om­men­da­tions for elec­tric­i­ty rate in­creas­es.

“I have the con­fir­ma­tion, the minute in my hand, which shows the Cab­i­net of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go has re­ject­ed the RIC’s rec­om­men­da­tions as it re­lates to the elec­tric­i­ty tar­iffs,” Padarath said at a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing.

The RIC had pre­vi­ous­ly pro­posed in­creas­es rang­ing from 15 per cent to 64 per cent for res­i­den­tial cus­tomers and from 51 per cent to 63 per cent for com­mer­cial cus­tomers.

Those pro­pos­als fol­lowed a re­view of elec­tric­i­ty rates and were sub­ject to pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions be­fore any changes could be im­ple­ment­ed.

Gon­za­les, how­ev­er, said the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to im­pose the new sur­charge amount­ed to ex­ec­u­tive in­ter­fer­ence in util­i­ty rates.

He ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of dis­re­gard­ing the le­gal frame­work gov­ern­ing the reg­u­la­tion of elec­tric­i­ty tar­iffs.

“So when a gov­ern­ment tak­ing ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty to in­ter­fere in rates for util­i­ty cus­tomers, it tells you how dan­ger­ous they are be­cause they are not pre­pared to abide by the RIC Act,” he said.

Gon­za­les main­tained that the leg­is­la­tion gave the in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion the au­thor­i­ty to vary rates for util­i­ty ser­vices.

“I’m say­ing to­day that that an­nounce­ment is il­le­gal. It con­tra­venes the RIC Act and the cus­tomers should do every­thing in their pow­er to chal­lenge the le­gal­i­ty of that de­ci­sion,” he said.