Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) says it has sought le­gal ad­vice over the ex­is­tence of a con­tro­ver­sial “pro­tect­ed list” of cus­tomers shield­ed from the nor­mal dis­con­nec­tion process for un­paid elec­tric­i­ty bills, ad­mit­ting there is no doc­u­ment­ed pol­i­cy, pro­ce­dure or record ex­plain­ing how cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als and pri­vate com­pa­nies came to be in­clud­ed.

The dis­clo­sure has added fu­el to the po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy, with Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath in­sist­ing that nei­ther he nor any mem­ber of the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment ap­pears on the list.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, T&TEC con­firmed the ex­is­tence of the pro­tect­ed list but said it was cur­rent­ly un­able to de­ter­mine how sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als and pri­vate-sec­tor en­ti­ties came to be in­clud­ed be­cause no sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion, board ap­proval or for­mal cri­te­ria could be found.

The util­i­ty said the list was orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity of ser­vice for crit­i­cal na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing gov­ern­ment min­istries and de­part­ments, state en­ter­pris­es, statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties and for­eign em­bassies.

How­ev­er, T&TEC said that be­tween 2015 and 2025 the list ex­pand­ed to in­clude gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and cer­tain pri­vate com­pa­nies.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, there is no pub­lished pol­i­cy, pro­ce­dure or cri­te­ria per­tain­ing to the pro­tect­ed list,” the com­mis­sion said.

“There is no doc­u­men­ta­tion or record as to how the in­di­vid­u­als and pri­vate com­pa­nies who now ap­pear on the list were added to it. There is no board minute per­tain­ing to same.”

T&TEC’s state­ment did not iden­ti­fy any of the in­di­vid­u­als or com­pa­nies cur­rent­ly on the list, nor did it in­di­cate whether those cus­tomers con­tin­ue to re­ceive pro­tec­tion from dis­con­nec­tion.

How­ev­er, the com­mis­sion ref­er­enced Sec­tion 5(1) of the Elec­tric­i­ty Act, which per­mits the Pres­i­dent to give T&TEC di­rec­tions of a gen­er­al pol­i­cy na­ture on mat­ters af­fect­ing the pub­lic in­ter­est. T&TEC sug­gest­ed that pro­vi­sion may be rel­e­vant as it re­views the fu­ture of the pro­tect­ed list.

“T&TEC has sought le­gal ad­vice on this mat­ter and will be guid­ed by same,” the com­mis­sion stat­ed.

Guardian Me­dia asked Padarath whether he or any of his Cab­i­net col­leagues had been au­to­mat­i­cal­ly placed on the list on as­sum­ing of­fice.

“I am ad­vised by T&TEC that I have nev­er been placed on any list be­fore or af­ter my as­sump­tion as Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, nei­ther were any of my col­leagues,” Padarath re­spond­ed.

He ques­tioned why, ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion he had, sev­er­al for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) min­is­ters and the To­ba­go PNM Coun­cil ap­peared on the list be­tween 2015 and 2025.

“What is strange is that be­tween 2015 to 2025 on­ly a hand-se­lect­ed few PNM min­is­ters were on this list, some with mul­ti­ple ac­counts which sug­gest mul­ti­ple prop­er­ties,” he said, adding more in­for­ma­tion would be re­vealed in due course.

The is­sue first gained na­tion­al at­ten­tion af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar raised con­cerns in Par­lia­ment about the ex­is­tence of a list of cus­tomers whose elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply was al­leged­ly pro­tect­ed de­spite out­stand­ing ar­rears.

Yes­ter­day, for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les strong­ly re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the arrange­ment orig­i­nat­ed un­der the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion. He ac­cused T&TEC of at­tempt­ing to politi­cise the is­sue by sug­gest­ing the prac­tice on­ly emerged af­ter 2015.

“T&TEC is play­ing pol­i­tics to sug­gest that this in­ter­nal un­writ­ten pol­i­cy on­ly came in­to place in 2015. That’s an­oth­er lie and a spin in­tend­ed to save the Prime Min­is­ter and her be­sieged Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties from the pub­lic back­lash and em­bar­rass­ment that they now have to en­dure,” Gon­za­les said.

He main­tained that he was re­li­ably in­formed that the prac­tice ex­ist­ed for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 years and op­er­at­ed as an in­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tive mech­a­nism with­in the com­mis­sion.

“The PM spun her web of lies to give the per­cep­tion that it was a PNM pol­i­cy put in place to ben­e­fit PNM of­fi­cials,” he added.

Mean­while, Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get said work­ers had long re­port­ed be­ing in­struct­ed to pri­ori­tise cer­tain cus­tomers.

Ro­get claimed that un­der pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions, T&TEC work­ers were di­rect­ed not to dis­con­nect some ma­jor busi­ness­es and to re­spond im­me­di­ate­ly to out­ages af­fect­ing se­lect­ed cus­tomers, even if it meant de­lay­ing ser­vice to oth­er com­mu­ni­ties.

“We have the ex­pe­ri­ence. T&TEC work­ers were in­struct­ed not to dis­con­nect cer­tain ma­jor busi­ness­es and were in­struct­ed who to pri­ori­tise,” Ro­get said.

While say­ing he could not ver­i­fy all re­ports re­gard­ing the pro­tect­ed list, Ro­get en­dorsed calls for equal treat­ment of all cus­tomers.

“I sup­port the Prime Min­is­ter in that re­gard,” he said.

“All of us are equals and all of us should be treat­ed as equals. All of us pay bills and all of us are en­ti­tled to the same treat­ment.”

T&TEC, mean­while, sought to re­as­sure the pub­lic that it re­mains com­mit­ted to fair­ness and equal­i­ty, say­ing it had tak­en note of the strong pub­lic con­cern sur­round­ing the is­sue.

“T&TEC wish­es to reaf­firm its com­mit­ment to the right to equal­i­ty of treat­ment guar­an­teed by the Con­sti­tu­tion to all cit­i­zens,” the com­mis­sion stat­ed.

“It is our in­ten­tion to con­tin­ue treat­ing every cus­tomer with equal dig­ni­ty and re­spect.”