LIGHT BILLS GETTING HEAVIER NEXT YEAR

START budgeting to pay more for your electricity service from next year. 

The slow-moving review by the Regulated Industries Commission (RIC) of the rates and tariffs of Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (TTEC) would be completed in 2022. 

That would lead to heavier light bills for all consumers. 

RIC stalled the exercise this year as it awaited a new business plan from TTEC, with various financial projections and other details. 

In the process, the commission lost $1.1 billion in its latest fiscal year. 

Finance Minister Colm Imbert has stressed that he is rolling back billion-dollar annual subsidies to TTEC, and publicly egged on RIC to devise new TTEC rates “in 2021.” 

With the completed business plan, the RIC is set to speed up its review, which is expected to be concluded by mid-2022. 

RIC Chair Dawn Callender said last June that the body was “targeting a 12-month period to complete the rate review.” 

The Commission enjoys preferential natural gas rates from National Gas Company (NGC). 

Cabinet’s Sub-Committee on Energy is to decide on revised new NGC gas prices. 

TTEC has been complaining that its annual losses stem from “hefty” labour costs, including overtime payments. 

The Commission has become even more financially hamstrung in recent years by the closures of large industrial clients at Point Lisas and elsewhere. 

With TTEC’s take-or-pay agreement with NGC, the electricity enterprise has been left with excess capacity on its grid. 

The Commission is heavily indebted to NGC, but has not revealed the exact sum. 

NGC is also in the red, having lost $2.1 billion in 2020. 

NGC’s Chairman Conrad Enill has said there is “value leakage” and the company is working with the Government on these issues, which include the TTEC “matter.” 

All of that means that consumers would soon have to dig deeper into their pockets to pay their light bills. 

The Water and Sewerage Authority also has an application before RIC for an increase in its consumer rates.