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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.