Click to view full size

The for­mer Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, says while the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to not im­ple­ment the rec­om­mend­ed rate in­crease for T&TEC cus­tomers is ap­peal­ing to cit­i­zens, it is not fi­nan­cial­ly fea­si­ble for the coun­try.

Speak­ing on CNC3's The Morn­ing Brew show to­day, Gon­za­les not­ed that the state-owned Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) al­ready is in­debt­ed to the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC), with no fea­si­ble plan to gen­er­ate rev­enue.

“It can­not be sus­tained,” he as­sert­ed. “The Gov­ern­ment is fund­ing T&TEC to the tune of bil­lions of dol­lars. The amount of mon­ey we sub­sidise in the gen­er­a­tion of gas … T&TEC is not pay­ing NGC mon­ey for the gas they con­sume to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty.”