Senior Political Reporter
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley says Government will ask the T&T Electricity Commission (T&TEC) and other public utilities to put the real cost of their services and the subsidised cost that consumers pay on their bills.
He said this is necessary “so that you could see exactly what you’re getting as against the old talk from some of them who know better, who will encourage you to rant and rave and misbehave,” Rowley added on Thursday.
Rowley commented on the Regulated Industries’ Commission’s (RIC) recommended rate hikes for T&TEC during a post-Cabinet media briefing at Whitehall on Thursday.
“The population would be encouraged to accept that yesterday is not today and may not be tomorrow. There are changes and the best thing we could do is to prepare ourselves to benefit from yesterday and to make good decisions today and to be prepared for tomorrow. Those are three steps we have to do as individual citizens,” he said.
Rowley said he knew people “like the five minutes of fame and wave a flag in defence of the downtrodden.”
He added: “We arrived at this position in a civil way. An independent commission looked at it. There’s still going to be a significant element of subsidy on electricity in this country and you know something? I’m asking the Minister of Public Utilities, just for the help of the public on the conversation going forward.
“I don’t know what time it’s going to happen but we’ll talk to T&TEC and to the other utilities going forward and the real cost of these services must be put on the bill and the subsidised cost that you pay must also be on the bill.”
Rowley explained that a bill could have the real cost of $15 alongside the consumers’ subsidised cost of $3.
“So you could see it and then you have no excuse after that to be misled by people who would lead you astray,” he said.
“Right now, this country’s position is that we should aim to be reasonable, understand that things have changed, or are changing, and prepare ourselves to do the best we can do in a changed environment,”
Cabinet to look at RIC recommendations
Rowley said the RIC made an independent assessment of the situation and Cabinet would look at the recommendations “because at the end of the day, it would be the Government taking on the responsibility as to how much,”
“The Cabinet will look at what the RIC has put there and it takes into account how it will impact here, who’s going to pay there, who’s going to get relief, who’ll have to pay a bit more without relief and so on,” he said
Noting that commercial enterprises are profit-making he added: “It is unrealistic for such entities to say to the Government, ‘So that I can make my profit, you have to subsidise it.’ This isn’t a reasonable position.
“You have to find some way of coping with your input and I’ll be very surprised if the voice of the commercial enterprises in T&T is that ‘ because we have to pay a little more for electricity, we’re now unprofitable,’ . That’s not what I expect and I don’t think that’s the situation,”
Rowley said electricity in T&T is still among the cheapest and is still a cheap product for citizens.
However, he pointed out: “T&TEC owes billions of dollars for the gas that it burns to provide electricity, so let’s stop pretending that’s not so and if we have to pay a little bit more - and I’m hoping it’s a ‘little bit more’ - stop pretending that this is the sky falling on our heads!”
Rowley added: “The price of the gas has gone up and is going up and if T&TEC is to keep providing us with a reliable service . . . you don’t want rolling blackouts. All over Trinidad and Tobago people are being provided with what I consider to be a good service from T&TEC but the circumstances are that T&TEC isn’t able to pay for the gas it’s burning.
“The Finance Minister pays that. The minister’s ability to pay is also being reduced.”
He said the first thing to consider is how to affordably maintain a sustainable quality service “and we all have to agree it’s not going to be cheap and it’s not going to be free.”
On the issue of alternative energy sources to allow people to offset electricity costs, Rowley said there is one more step to get regulations in place for surplus power to enter the grid.
On the Middle East conflict, Rowley said Government supports the two-state policy “where peace and sustainable development can come to the people of the Middle East, Israel and its neighbours, recognising Israel’s right to exist and also the right of the Palestinians to a state of its own.”