The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) has an­nounced the re­tire­ment of gen­er­al man­ag­er Chrisal­ston Belle, ef­fec­tive to­mor­row af­ter a 33-year ca­reer with the or­gan­i­sa­tion.

Belle held sev­er­al se­nior po­si­tions dur­ing his tenure and was in­stru­men­tal in the in­tro­duc­tion of sys­tems to re­duce out­age time, the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the out­age man­age­ment sys­tem, and the adop­tion of busi­ness in­tel­li­gence tools to im­prove da­ta-dri­ven de­ci­sion mak­ing. He al­so in­tro­duced the Re­store and Re­pair con­cept to strength­en re­spons­es to feed­er trips.

In 2023, while serv­ing as chief Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer, Belle over­saw the com­ple­tion and com­mis­sion­ing of the Union/Gand­hi 220kV cir­cuit. The 22-kilo­me­tre back­up cir­cuit con­nects Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed in La Brea to the Gand­hi Sub­sta­tion, sup­port­ing the trans­mis­sion of elec­tric­i­ty across the coun­try.

T&TEC has ap­point­ed Area Man­ag­er–Dis­tri­b­u­tion South, Vi­jai Ram­nanans­ingh, to act as Gen­er­al Man­ag­er dur­ing the tran­si­tion. Ram­nanans­ingh has worked with the Com­mis­sion for 22 years.

The Board of Com­mis­sion­ers ex­pressed grat­i­tude to Belle for his years of ser­vice to the Com­mis­sion and ex­tend­ed best wish­es to him in re­tire­ment.

In Jan­u­ary, Belle was ap­point­ed T&TEC gen­er­al man­ag­er, re­plac­ing Curvis Fran­cois, who re­tired from the com­mis­sion in No­vem­ber 2024 af­ter 38 years of ser­vice.

The change comes as the Op­po­si­tion ear­li­er this month ex­pressed con­cern about the fu­ture of T&TEC, now that the Gov­ern­ment is on the cusp of re­ject­ing the rec­om­men­da­tions made by the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) to in­crease elec­tric­i­ty rates.

In 2022, af­ter pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, the RIC draft­ed a re­port with rec­om­men­da­tions to in­crease elec­tric­i­ty rates for res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial cus­tomers over a five-year pe­ri­od.

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Bar­ry Padarath, re­ject­ed the rec­om­mend­ed in­creas­es, stat­ing that cit­i­zens should not have to pay for the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to pay its debts.