KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

As most Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) cus­tomers have breathed a sigh of re­lief over the Gov­ern­ment’s promise not to in­crease elec­tric­i­ty rates, for­mer Pub­lic Util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les says the cur­rent sta­tus quo is not sus­tain­able.

Days af­ter crit­i­cis­ing Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath’s new plans for the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, as a re­sult of Cab­i­net’s scrap­ping of the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion’s trans­for­ma­tion plan, Gon­za­les is now in agree­ment with the Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to keep the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) elec­tion promise of no elec­tric­i­ty rate hike.

Speak­ing on Guardian Me­dia via tele­phone yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) recog­nised that in­creas­ing elec­tric­i­ty rates would have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact, es­pe­cial­ly for low-in­come do­mes­tic con­sumers, and as such agreed that it should not be done.

How­ev­er, Gon­za­les be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment’s fo­cus should be on en­sur­ing that util­i­ty agen­cies are paid for long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

Fur­ther­more, he said, the Gov­ern­ment must state its poli­cies for the fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of these agen­cies.

Gon­za­les said, “The cur­rent sta­tus quo is not sus­tain­able be­cause the PNM un­der­stood that we could not bur­den the pop­u­la­tion with a rate in­crease at this time. But T&TEC owes NGC (Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny) bil­lions in ar­rears for gas that it does not pay for, and some­one will one day have to pick up the tab. So, say­ing that we not rais­ing elec­tric­i­ty rates is not the is­sue. That’s the eas­i­est de­ci­sion to make. The ele­phant in the room is how do we, as a coun­try, pro­ceed from here in a sit­u­a­tion that is not sus­tain­able for the util­i­ty agen­cies. And if all agen­cies and cus­tomers pay T&TEC what is owed to it, it still will not be enough to pay what is owed to NGC and for the Com­mis­sion to en­gage in rou­tine pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance and oth­er ma­jor cap­i­tal in­vest­ments to ex­pand sup­ply. And the Gov­ern­ment must not just say that it will not im­ple­ment the rec­om­men­da­tions of the RIC (Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion). It must state its poli­cies for the fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of these agen­cies.”

At­tempts to con­tact the RIC yes­ter­day were fu­tile.

In 2023, the RIC pro­posed that elec­tric­i­ty rates for res­i­den­tial cus­tomers should in­crease be­tween 15 and 64 per cent, com­mer­cial cus­tomers 37 and 51 per cent, and in­dus­tri­al cus­tomers be­tween 58 and 72 per cent.

In ad­di­tion, the RIC said, cus­tomers should be re­quired to pay a month­ly elec­tric­i­ty bill, as op­posed to one every two months.

It was re­port­ed that the rate of in­crease would be de­ter­mined by the new tiers the RIC for­mu­lat­ed for all cus­tomers as it moved to a month­ly bill.

A date for the in­crease was nev­er made of­fi­cial.