KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is warn­ing cit­i­zens to brace for a pos­si­ble in­crease in elec­tric­i­ty rates, which she says could re­sult from the pend­ing nat­ur­al gas price hike an­nounced by the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment me­dia con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Beck­les cau­tioned that the rip­ple ef­fects of a 70 per cent in­crease in gas prices could ex­tend be­yond in­dus­try.

“We all un­der­stand the con­se­quences of an in­crease of 70 per cent. We must know there is the is­sue of elec­tric­i­ty. We can’t pre­tend that this is not go­ing to arise. Just as how you were asleep and woke up Christ­mas morn­ing look­ing for a gift, and the gift you got was an in­crease in fines, wait pa­tient­ly,” Beck­les said.

How­ev­er, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath re­ject­ed the Op­po­si­tion’s claims, telling Guardian Me­dia that any in­crease in elec­tric­i­ty costs would af­fect on­ly in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers and not res­i­den­tial users.

Padarath said the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment sold gas be­low the cost of ac­qui­si­tion, re­sult­ing in sig­nif­i­cant loss­es to tax­pay­ers.

“The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion was ei­ther asleep, as per usu­al, or is be­ing down­right hyp­o­crit­i­cal. She should know, be­cause she was part of a gov­ern­ment and Cab­i­net that al­lowed light in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers to en­joy sub­si­dies that cost tax­pay­ers bil­lions of dol­lars, while a few en­ti­ties made mas­sive prof­its at the ex­pense of NGC,” Padarath said.

He added, “The bot­tom line is that this in­crease ap­plies on­ly to light in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers and will have no im­pact on res­i­den­tial elec­tric­i­ty rates. There­fore, the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion is be­ing a bla­tant liar. It was the PNM gov­ern­ment that pur­sued in­creas­es in res­i­den­tial elec­tric­i­ty rates, and at that time Mrs Beck­les-Robin­son said noth­ing. That is the height of hypocrisy. This will have ab­solute­ly no im­pact on T&TEC res­i­den­tial cus­tomers.”

Be­yond elec­tric­i­ty, the Op­po­si­tion warned that oth­er price in­creas­es could fol­low.

Al­so ad­dress­ing the PNM press con­fer­ence, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi said, “Crix go­ing up. Juice go­ing up. Carib go­ing up.”

PM avoid­ing en­er­gy sec­tor

Beck­les al­so crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for de­clin­ing an in­vi­ta­tion to at­tend an en­er­gy con­fer­ence sched­uled for next week, ac­cus­ing her of avoid­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty to key stake­hold­ers.

“I’ll tell you why the Prime Min­is­ter and her en­tire gov­ern­ment are run­ning from that con­fer­ence. They are run­ning be­cause they bud­get­ed oil at US$73.25, and it is now at US$60. They have to ex­plain to the pub­lic how they in­tend to man­age the short­fall,” Beck­les said.

She ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment would al­so be un­able to jus­ti­fy its de­ci­sions to oil com­pa­nies, in­vestors and the wider busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty.

“The Prime Min­is­ter must tell us whether she even had the cour­tesy to in­form man­u­fac­tur­ers or mem­bers of the en­er­gy cham­ber—whom she has shown to­tal dis­re­spect—that the bud­get as­sump­tions have shift­ed and ad­just­ments are nec­es­sary. In­stead, we see the same bul­ly­ing be­hav­iour, where the Gov­ern­ment be­lieves it has the right to dic­tate fines and prices with­out ex­pla­na­tion. That is how this Gov­ern­ment op­er­ates,” Beck­les added.

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her views on what she de­scribed as the “self-serv­ing en­er­gy sec­tor” were long­stand­ing.

Asked whether En­er­gy Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal or Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh would at­tend the con­fer­ence in her ab­sence, the Prime Min­is­ter replied, “Nei­ther of them has in­di­cat­ed that they are at­tend­ing.”