"No stone will be left un­turned" as the Gov­ern­ment has ap­point­ed a three-man team to in­ves­ti­gate Wednes­day's is­land­wide black­out, says Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

The black­out left Trinidad with­out an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply for more than ten hours.

In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian on Fri­day, Gon­za­les said if any­one is found cul­pa­ble of wrong­do­ing, ap­pro­pri­ate and law­ful ac­tion will be tak­en.

The team, head­ed by re­tired pro­fes­sor of elec­tri­cal en­gi­neer­ing Chan­drab­han Shar­ma and in­clud­ing struc­tur­al en­gi­neer and re­tired UWI lec­tur­er Kei­th Sir­ju and Supt Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro as­signed to the Spe­cial Branch, was ap­point­ed on Fri­day. The re­port is ex­pect­ed to be sub­mit­ted in a month.

The pow­er out­age in­ter­rupt­ed the wa­ter sup­ply to homes and of­fices, forced the ear­ly clo­sure of schools, and led to busi­ness­es and gov­ern­ment of­fices shut­ting their doors. The econ­o­my was at T&T's mer­cy as the pow­er out­age re­sult­ed in mil­lions of dol­lars in loss­es for the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate lost mil­lions of US dol­lars due to the black­out as most of the plants were forced to shut down, while small and medi­um busi­ness­es were hit hard­er.

Econ­o­mist Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon de­scribed the black­out as "cal­lous and un­ac­cept­able in these times" as it high­light­ed that cus­tomers did not get val­ue for mon­ey when they paid tax­es and for util­i­ties. (See sto­ry–Black­out puts pres­sure on Point Lisas by Geisha Kow­lessar-Alon­zo)

Po­lice were forced to im­ple­ment an overnight emer­gency plan to en­sure safe­ty on the roads and pre­vent crim­i­nal op­por­tu­ni­ties. Traf­fic lights through­out the coun­try stopped work­ing, and mo­torists were stuck in traf­fic while com­muters were strand­ed for trans­port.

On T&TEC's oblig­a­tion to pay its res­i­den­tial and non-res­i­den­tial cus­tomers com­pen­sa­tion of $60 and $600 re­spec­tive­ly for fail­ing to re­store elec­tric­i­ty with­in ten hours of an un­planned out­age, Gon­za­les said that has to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion who will then de­cide on the mat­ter.

He said, how­ev­er, there are two ex­cep­tions for this penal­ty. First­ly, there is a force ma­jeure event, mean­ing an event that was com­plete­ly out­side of T&TEC's con­trol.

What hap­pened could be re­gard­ed as an event be­yond T&TEC's con­trol, he said. "The sec­ond ex­cep­tion would be that T&TEC was not re­ceiv­ing pow­er from in­de­pen­dent pow­er pro­duc­ers."

The RIC guide­lines, Gon­za­les added, al­so state that T&TEC is ex­clud­ed from pay­ing com­pen­sa­tion for breach­es of the guar­an­teed elec­tric­i­ty stan­dard for events aris­ing out of force ma­jeure con­di­tions such as fail­ure of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion sup­plied by a third par­ty.

Asked if T&TEC's cus­tomers were re­bat­ed or com­pen­sat­ed fol­low­ing the 2013 black­out, Gon­za­les said, "Not from my knowl­edge."

There were par­tial black­outs in sev­er­al parts of the coun­try dat­ing back to 2010, 2011 and 2012. How­ev­er, on March 29, 2013, there was an is­land­wide pow­er out­age.

Motorists rush to fill up their tanks at St Christopher’s Gas Station on Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain, on Wednesday during the blackout.

ANISTO ALVES

Q: Now that a three-man team has been ap­point­ed to get to the bot­tom of this mat­ter what as­sur­ances are you giv­ing the pop­u­la­tion?

A: Yes, I want to as­sure the pop­u­la­tion that in so far as my min­istry and the Gov­ern­ment, we will leave no stone un­turned to get to the bot­tom of this mat­ter. We will ful­ly and thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gate all the is­sues that con­tributed to this 12-hour out­age. And we will take every step and every ac­tion to build re­silience in­to our na­tion­al elec­tric­i­ty grid to pro­tect the pop­u­la­tion.

If it is proven that some­thing went wrong as a re­sult of the ac­tion of some­one or an agency, will you en­sure they shoul­der the blame?

Well, if some­body has to take the blame, they will be held ac­count­able. It is as sim­ple as that. There is so sa­cred cow in this thing. The Gov­ern­ment, as a re­spon­si­ble Gov­ern­ment with an open mind, will await the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and if blame is point­ed in any par­tic­u­lar di­rec­tion then, what­ev­er ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion is deemed nec­es­sary and law­ful it will be tak­en.

Will T&TEC sub­mit a re­port to the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) re­gard­ing Wednes­day's black­out?

The RIC will con­duct their own in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tion. They have to de­ter­mine how they are go­ing to con­duct their in­ves­ti­ga­tion. They could prob­a­bly re­quest a re­port from T&TEC and the in­de­pen­dent pow­er pro­duc­ers.

Do you think T&TEC should be in­ves­ti­gat­ing it­self fol­low­ing this black­out?

I don't think it is a mat­ter of T&TEC in­ves­ti­gat­ing it­self. An in­ci­dent oc­curred that im­pact­ed the util­i­ty com­pa­ny's abil­i­ty to pro­vide an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply to its cus­tomers. It is on­ly pru­dent that they con­duct their in­ves­ti­ga­tions to see where things may have gone wrong and what it can put in place to mit­i­gate against it. Any or­gan­i­sa­tion must be able to ex­am­ine its own sys­tems and process­es and to make de­ci­sions com­ing out of it for the ben­e­fit of its cus­tomers. Is the or­gan­i­sa­tion just to sit back and wait for some­body else to tell them what to do? T&TEC has to con­stant­ly look at its risk mea­sures, its sys­tems to make sure every­thing is in place to deal with any even­tu­al­i­ty that may oc­cur. It is not a mat­ter of him­self in­ves­ti­gat­ing him­self. T&TEC can­not wait on the out­come of the in­ves­tiga­tive team. The team will not re­port to T&TEC but the Gov­ern­ment. What­ev­er pol­i­cy de­ci­sion the Gov­ern­ment has to make they will make.

How many in­ves­ti­ga­tions will be un­der­tak­en re­gard­ing the pow­er out­age?

On­ly T&TEC and the three-man in­ves­tiga­tive team.

Is T&TEC ob­lig­at­ed to pay its res­i­den­tial and non-res­i­den­tial cus­tomers com­pen­sa­tion of $60 and $600 re­spec­tive­ly for fail­ing to re­store elec­tric­i­ty with­in ten hours of an un­planned out­age, ac­cord­ing to RIC's guide­lines?

First, to be­gin, that has to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion. The RIC in do­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tion and will de­ter­mine whether...Well, there are two ex­cep­tions for this penal­ty. First­ly, there is a force ma­jeure event, mean­ing an event that was com­plete­ly out­side of T&TEC's con­trol. What hap­pened could be re­gard­ed as an event that hap­pened be­yond T&TEC's con­trol. The sec­ond ex­cep­tion would be that T&TEC was not re­ceiv­ing pow­er from in­de­pen­dent pow­er pro­duc­ers. The RIC guide­lines al­so state that T&TEC is ex­clud­ed from pay­ing com­pen­sa­tion for breach­es of the guar­an­teed elec­tric­i­ty stan­dard for events aris­ing out of force ma­jeure con­di­tions such as fail­ure of elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion sup­plied by a third par­ty.

Can T&TEC be ex­on­er­at­ed from pay­ing com­pen­sa­tion to af­fect­ed cus­tomers?

Well, the ex­cep­tions ap­ply be­cause T&TEC was in a po­si­tion to dis­trib­ute the elec­tric­i­ty but it could not have be­cause it was not get­ting the pow­er from the in­de­pen­dent pow­er pro­duc­ers. And there, they can­not be li­able for that.

There are com­ments on so­cial me­dia that if T&TEC fails to com­pen­sate its cus­tomers the Gov­ern­ment can face class-ac­tion law­suits, what is your re­sponse to this?

Those com­men­ta­tors are mis­lead­ing the pub­lic.

Has T&TEC re­ceived any re­port from cus­tomers who suf­fered loss­es as a re­sult of the pow­er out­age?

No.

Many busi­ness­es suf­fered tremen­dous loss­es, how do you think they will be able to re­cov­er from this?

I don't want to triv­i­alise what tran­spired there, be­cause, of course, it would have re­sult­ed in a loss of rev­enue, it would have had some fi­nan­cial im­pact...But was the im­pact to the ex­tent that busi­ness­es would not be able to re­cov­er from it? I hard­ly doubt it.

Were T&TEC's cus­tomers re­bat­ed or com­pen­sat­ed fol­low­ing the 2013 black­out?

Not from my knowl­edge.

You were crit­i­cised by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for laugh­ing when asked by re­porters on Thurs­day what as­sur­ances you could give that such a mas­sive fail­ure would not hap­pen again, how do you re­spond?

Well, the Op­po­si­tion Leader had noth­ing to re­spond to. The Gov­ern­ment han­dled the sit­u­a­tion com­pe­tent­ly. If this is the on­ly is­sue she can raise about my han­dling of the mat­ter was the fact that I smiled at a ques­tion from a re­porter, then it means that I am do­ing a pret­ty okay job.

Would you agree with T&TEC's gen­er­al man­ag­er Kelvin Ram­sook that the black­out was a cat­a­stroph­ic fail­ure?

It was a cat­a­stroph­ic fail­ure be­cause al­most the whole of Trinidad was out of elec­tric­i­ty for quite a long pe­ri­od of time. It caused mas­sive in­con­ve­nience to res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial cus­tomers. There was traf­fic grid­lock in some parts of the coun­try. It shut down busi­ness­es and some schools. I agree with him. And I agree with his de­scrip­tion of the fail­ure.

Do you agree that the pow­er out­age should not have shut down an en­tire is­land?

Let me tell you this, a na­tion­al black­out is not a Trinidad and To­ba­go thing. If you just Google search "In­ter­na­tion­al Black­outs" you would see re­cent­ly Lon­don had one, New York had one. It is some­thing that oc­curs all over the world. I would not say on a reg­u­lar ba­sis, but most coun­tries around the world from time to time can ex­pe­ri­ence a black­out on their grid. And there are many things that can con­tribute to a black­out. There is al­ways the pos­si­bil­i­ty that you can have a na­tion­al black­out. So let us not beat up on our­selves that what tran­spired two days ago, it is some­thing that is un­heard of, it does not hap­pen, it can­not hap­pen, it is im­pos­si­ble and is on­ly in Trinidad this can hap­pen. What you have to do is learn from the mis­takes of a black­out and con­tin­ue to build re­silience and build re­dun­dan­cy in­to your sys­tem.

As dark­ness de­scend­ed on the coun­try on Wednes­day, what were your thoughts and feel­ings?

I got re­al­ly wor­ried as night start­ed to fall. I did not want the night to fall and the coun­try did not have pow­er be­cause I know it would have posed a se­ri­ous na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty risk. So I got con­cerned. That is when I left my of­fice and went up to the op­er­a­tion cen­tre in Mt Hope. I kept the Prime Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net in­formed all along. The slow pace at which the pow­er was be­ing re­stored caused me some un­ease at one point in time. As ex­haust­ing as the sit­u­a­tion was, I felt the pain of the coun­try not hav­ing elec­tric­i­ty.

Is Gov­ern­ment pleased with TGU's (Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed) per­for­mance?

Well, the Gov­ern­ment doesn't have any­thing be­fore it to sug­gest that TGU is not per­form­ing. So the Gov­ern­ment is go­ing to wait for the out­come of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It is just a month away. Let us al­low the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to take its course.

Since last De­cem­ber, T&TEC has been with­out a board of di­rec­tors, what is caus­ing the de­lay?

There is no board in place right now, so man­age­ment is in charge of their own af­fairs. The Gov­ern­ment will make a de­ci­sion on fi­nal­is­ing the board as soon as pos­si­ble. It is be­fore Cab­i­net and they are mak­ing sure we have the best peo­ple to serve on the board.