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Sunday, July 13, 2025

Arima businesses want Govt to hold hand on public utility rates

by

Radhica De Silva
1604 days ago
20210220
President of the Arima Business Association Reval Chattergoon

President of the Arima Business Association Reval Chattergoon

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Faced with a pos­si­ble in­crease in the rates of pub­lic util­i­ties, the pres­i­dent of the Ari­ma Busi­ness As­so­ci­a­tion Reval Cha­toor­goon is call­ing on the gov­ern­ment to hold its hand on any such in­creas­es.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Chat­ter­goon said while the present rates are low­er than most world­wide rates, any in­crease dur­ing an eco­nom­ic down­turn will cause even more hard­ship to cit­i­zens. Chat­ter­goon said the ef­fects of a pan­dem­ic is al­ready crip­pling cit­i­zens and putting a strain on all the in­sti­tu­tions of the State.

Say­ing the gov­ern­ment must be­gin fix­ing the wastage that oc­curs in all Gov­ern­ment agen­cies, Chat­ter­goon said this wastage oc­curs not just with util­i­ty ser­vice providers.

“Wastages in the form of over­staffing, re­ward­ing un­der­per­form­ing staff/de­part­ments, mis­man­age­ment of com­pa­ny re­sources, in­fe­ri­or work­man­ship, breach­es of com­pa­ny poli­cies need to be fixed,” he added.

Chat­ter­goon al­so said that any in­creas­es would be deemed un­fair.

“It is un­fair to im­pose on­to the pop­u­la­tion rate in­creas­es when these in­ef­fi­cien­cies re­main with no sign of im­me­di­ate re­me­di­al ac­tion,” he said.

Not­ing that there was a need to re­gain pub­lic con­fi­dence in these State in­sti­tu­tions, Chat­ter­goon said trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty were need­ed.

He added, “One must un­der­stand that busi­ness­es and in­dus­tries al­ready pay more than the av­er­age con­sumer un­der ‘Com­mer­cial’ rate sched­ules de­spite re­ceiv­ing the same qual­i­ty of ser­vice as the Res­i­den­tial clas­si­fi­ca­tion.

“Any in­creas­es in util­i­ty rates would ul­ti­mate­ly trick­le down to the con­sumers who are al­ready faced with low­ered dis­pos­able in­come due to COVID-19. Is an in­crease in rates an in­di­ca­tor that con­sumers will ex­pe­ri­ence in­creased qual­i­ty of ser­vice and cus­tomer ser­vice?” he asked.

Chat­ter­goon al­so added, “Will our ap­pli­ances be saved from the reg­u­lar pow­er dips and surges? Will the days of wa­ter sched­ules be fi­nal­ly gone and all pay­ing cit­i­zens can get a dai­ly sup­ply of pipe-borne wa­ter? Can the de­ci­sion-mak­ers guar­an­tee that in­creas­es in util­i­ty rates will re­turn prof­its to re­pay the mil­lions owed to cred­i­tors? “

Chat­ter­goon said the “cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es of T&T could not af­ford to fund or con­tin­ue to fund in­ef­fi­cien­cies in the pub­lic ser­vice.”

“We as con­sumers are present­ly not get­ting val­ue for mon­ey,” he added.

Last De­cem­ber Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les said the cur­rent pub­lic util­i­ty rates must in­crease if there are to be greater ef­fi­cien­cy in the de­liv­ery of util­i­ties.

Ear­li­er this week, econ­o­mist Dr Ter­rence Far­rel told Guardian Me­dia that the T&T econ­o­my is in deep trou­ble and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert could not avoid cut­ting the Pub­lic Ser­vice and in­creas­ing the cost of util­i­ties.


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