For­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les says the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) main­tains an in­ter­nal list of high-pro­file cus­tomers, in­clud­ing min­is­ters, judges and diplo­mats, to mon­i­tor ac­counts flagged for dis­con­nec­tion or un­usu­al ac­tiv­i­ty.

In a Face­book post on Mon­day, Gon­za­les said the list ex­ists sole­ly to al­low T&TEC to con­tact those cus­tomers if is­sues arise with their ac­counts and does not ex­empt them from pay­ing elec­tric­i­ty bills.

His com­ments came in re­sponse to al­le­ga­tions raised by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment last week con­cern­ing a pur­port­ed “pro­tect­ed list” of cus­tomers linked to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).