A stark con­trast ex­ists in how the Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) treats res­i­den­tial cus­tomers com­pared to pub­lic en­ti­ties, a con­cern raised by the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) yes­ter­day—par­tic­u­lar­ly re­gard­ing dis­con­nec­tions for ar­rears.

JSC mem­ber Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al high­light­ed that, while gov­ern­ment min­istries and agen­cies owed T&TEC ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2 bil­lion, it re­mains un­clear whether any State en­ti­ty was ever dis­con­nect­ed, re­quired to pay a re­con­nec­tion fee, or faced le­gal ac­tion for out­stand­ing debts amount­ing to mil­lions.

In No­vem­ber, Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les in­formed the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that State agen­cies owed T&TEC $1.9 bil­lion, while the util­i­ty provider was $6.16 bil­lion in debt to the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny.

Since T&TEC was not present at the sit­ting, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Nico­lette Duke, stat­ed she was un­aware of any dis­con­nec­tions but could re­quest the in­for­ma­tion. She al­so could not con­firm the cur­rent ar­rears owed to T&TEC.

JSC mem­ber Khadi­jah Ameen raised con­cerns over en­force­ment, not­ing that or­di­nary cit­i­zens faced dis­con­nec­tion for ar­rears of less than $2,000, while gov­ern­ment agen­cies owe sig­nif­i­cant­ly more with­out sim­i­lar con­se­quences. She ques­tioned whether Cor­po­ra­tion Sole was mak­ing suf­fi­cient ef­forts to re­cov­er the bil­lions in un­paid debts.

Ameen un­der­scored pub­lic frus­tra­tion, stat­ing that many feel a deep sense of in­jus­tice when there ap­pears to be one rule for cit­i­zens and an­oth­er for min­istries and agen­cies.

“There is no sanc­tion, reper­cus­sion, or in­cen­tive for them to ho­n­our their debt. So, what pre­vents you from start­ing with a few? Of course, you no­ti­fy them as usu­al. What pre­vents you from dis­con­nect­ing these bil­lion-dol­lar cus­tomers so at least the small man feels there is some sense of equal­i­ty?” Ameen asked.

Duke de­ferred to T&TEC on the mat­ter.

JSC Chair­man Suni­ty Ma­haraj asked whether a pol­i­cy gave State en­ti­ties greater le­nien­cy in bill pay­ments. Duke said she was un­aware of any such pol­i­cy, stat­ing that all T&TEC bills in­di­cate the same pay­ment dead­lines.

Duke ac­knowl­edged that some agen­cies had com­plained about in­suf­fi­cient al­lo­ca­tions and de­lays in re­ceiv­ing funds. How­ev­er, she ex­plained that the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties (MPU) on­ly me­di­ates and fa­cil­i­tates dis­cus­sions with sis­ter min­istries and State agen­cies to arrange debt pay­ments. She added that the MPU al­so com­mu­ni­cates with the Min­istry of Fi­nance (MoF), which al­lo­cates funds to var­i­ous en­ti­ties to fa­cil­i­tate bill pay­ments.

“There are con­cert­ed ef­forts apart from what I de­scribed. The min­istry is ac­tive­ly en­gaged, and T&TEC is dili­gent­ly fol­low­ing up with min­istries and agen­cies to set up pay­ment plans,” Duke said. She added that sim­i­lar is­sues ex­ist with the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) and the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance, Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS), both of which are owed large sums.

Ma­haraj ac­knowl­edged that dis­con­nect­ing es­sen­tial ser­vices such as hos­pi­tals, schools, and the po­lice could be dif­fi­cult. How­ev­er, she in­sist­ed that the sit­u­a­tion could not re­main open-end­ed, as some­one need­ed to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for pay­ing these bills. She ques­tioned whether the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) fac­tored this debt in­to rate in­creas­es and whether the pub­lic would be asked to bear the cost of gov­ern­ment non-pay­ment.

RIC Chair­man Dawn Cal­len­der said that T&TEC was re­quired to pro­vide suf­fi­cient no­tice be­fore dis­con­nect­ing cus­tomers. RIC Deputy Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Car­ol Balka­ran ex­plained that, re­gard­ing res­i­den­tial cus­tomers, the com­mis­sion has a Code of Prac­tice that re­quires T&TEC to fol­low spe­cif­ic pro­ce­dures. Any cus­tomer can re­quest an in­stal­ment plan if they have dif­fi­cul­ty pay­ing.

How­ev­er, she clar­i­fied that when set­ting elec­tric­i­ty rates, the RIC bases cal­cu­la­tions on a for­ward-look­ing rev­enue re­quire­ment. As a re­sult, in­ef­fi­cien­cies in col­lect­ing past debts are not fac­tored in­to the pro­posed T&TEC’s rates.

“That does not mean we are un­con­cerned about the is­sue of non-pay­ment by cus­tomers with large re­ceiv­ables. In the price de­ter­mi­na­tion for T&TEC, we rec­om­mend­ed that the Min­istry of Fi­nance in­sti­tute a re­serve vote, en­sur­ing that funds al­lo­cat­ed to agen­cies for elec­tric­i­ty bills are used ex­clu­sive­ly for that pur­pose.

“If they re­ceive a re­lease, they can­not use those funds for any­thing oth­er than bill pay­ments. In the past, we al­so al­lowed T&TEC to im­pose in­ter­est charges on out­stand­ing bal­ances to en­cour­age time­ly pay­ments,” Balka­ran said.

Ameen ac­knowl­edged that rate ap­provals are ul­ti­mate­ly made by the Cab­i­net and not pub­lic ser­vants. She added that the pub­lic re­sists elec­tric­i­ty rate in­creas­es be­cause there is no vis­i­ble im­prove­ment in ser­vice.

“The gov­ern­ment sees the pub­lic push­back. It is very pos­si­ble that re­sis­tance to the rate in­crease has caused the Gov­ern­ment to hes­i­tate, es­pe­cial­ly in an elec­tion year,” Ameen said.