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Wednesday, May 28, 2025

New TTMA pres­i­dent to RIC:

Consider phased rate increases

by

Peter Christopher
784 days ago
20230405
TTMA president Roger Roach

TTMA president Roger Roach

ANISTO ALVES

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

New pres­i­dent of the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA), Roger Roach, yes­ter­day called on the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) to con­sid­er a phased in­crease in elec­tric­i­ty rates.

In his in­au­gur­al speech as pres­i­dent at the TTMA’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing at the Hy­att Re­gency yes­ter­day, the TTMA Pres­i­dent asked the RIC to take stock of the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate be­fore im­ple­ment­ing changes to the rates.

He ex­plained that the rate changes, which had been pro­posed in De­cem­ber, could have a dev­as­tat­ing im­pact on busi­ness­es and house­holds alike.

Roach said the TTMA board, on be­half of its mem­ber­ship, com­mis­sioned an in­ter­na­tion­al ac­count­ing firm to con­duct an Im­pact Analy­sis of the pro­posed rate hike.

“We un­der­stand the role of the RIC and we cer­tain­ly agree we must all share the bur­den. How­ev­er, this ex­treme pro­posed im­me­di­ate in­crease in the elec­tric­i­ty rate for in­dus­tri­al users of be­tween 72 to 87 per cent will lead to so­cio-eco­nom­ic prob­lems,” said Roach.

In a sit­u­a­tion where 100 per cent of costs are passed down the val­ue chain, the con­sumers can may po­ten­tial­ly face a 15 per cent in­crease in their gro­cery bills, he said.

Across all res­i­den­tial tiers, the pro­posed rate hike will dri­ve up elec­tric­i­ty bills by 15 to 64 per cent de­pend­ing on their us­age.

He said in the re­port’s in­dica­tive sce­nario, the av­er­age low­er mid­dle-in­come fam­i­ly will face an elec­tric­i­ty bill in­crease of 20 per cent.

“For a more holis­tic view, the im­pact of the pro­posed hike on the av­er­age house­hold’s month­ly bud­get was es­ti­mat­ed. Un­der the as­sump­tions of no change in rent or wa­ter costs, over­all ex­pens­es may climb by 5.5 per cent, while dis­cre­tionary in­come may po­ten­tial­ly dip by 24.7 per cent.”

He added changes could al­so lead to a po­ten­tial de­cline of GDP of 0.66 per cent with a de­crease in non-pe­tro­le­um ex­ports of 1.63 per cent as well as in­creased un­em­ploy­ment and a rise in core in­fla­tion.

“While these per­cent­ages may seem small, con­sid­er a de­cline in un­em­ploy­ment of 1.57 per cent on a labour force of 600,000 per­sons.”

Roach said while the TTMA ac­knowl­edged T&T’s elec­tric­i­ty rates were among the low­est in the re­gion, he said it served as a cru­cial boost to busi­ness and by ex­ten­sion the econ­o­my.

“No one needs to lec­ture us about the fact that our elec­tric­i­ty rate is low­er than our re­gion­al coun­ter­parts. How­ev­er, this is one of our few com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tages.

“We need to take these pro­posed in­creas­es in con­junc­tion with the cur­rent is­sues al­ready chal­leng­ing cit­i­zens with­in T&T’s macro­eco­nom­ic con­text: Rapid­ly ris­ing in­fla­tion rates, last es­ti­mat­ed at 8.7 per cent in De­cem­ber 2022; food in­fla­tion in par­tic­u­lar ac­cel­er­at­ed to 13.8 per cent; sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions dri­ving in­creased costs and stag­nant salaries, which in some cas­es are in­suf­fi­cient to meet the ris­ing cost of liv­ing.

Roger Roach, the 67th pres­i­dent of the TTMA, as­sumed the role from Tri­cia Coos­al who held the po­si­tion from 2021 to 2022.

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