Govt not ruling out T&TEC rate hike

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath yes­ter­day stopped short of as­sur­ing cit­i­zens that elec­tric­i­ty rates would not be in­creased to help set­tle the near­ly $10 bil­lion debt owed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) to the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

Pressed by the Op­po­si­tion dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee’s (SFC) ex­am­i­na­tion of the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties’ 2027 bud­getary al­lo­ca­tions, Padarath did not give a com­mit­ment that T&TEC cus­tomers would be spared fur­ther rate in­creas­es as the Gov­ern­ment seeks to ad­dress the mount­ing debt.

In­stead, he blamed the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion for al­low­ing the debt to ac­cu­mu­late, while re­veal­ing Gov­ern­ment had been ac­tive­ly en­gaged in ne­go­ti­a­tions with NGC to ad­dress the debt.