The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) says it has sought le­gal ad­vice over the ex­is­tence of a con­tro­ver­sial “pro­tect­ed list” of cus­tomers shield­ed from the nor­mal dis­con­nec­tion process for un­paid elec­tric­i­ty bills, as it ad­mit­ted there is no doc­u­ment­ed pol­i­cy, pro­ce­dure or record ex­plain­ing how cer­tain in­di­vid­u­als and pri­vate com­pa­nies came to be in­clud­ed on the list.

In a state­ment is­sued on to­day, T&TEC con­firmed that the list ex­ists but said it is cur­rent­ly un­aware of how sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als and pri­vate-sec­tor en­ti­ties were added be­cause no sup­port­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion, board ap­proval or for­mal cri­te­ria can be found.

“T&TEC has sought le­gal ad­vice on this mat­ter and will be guid­ed by same,” the com­mis­sion said, not­ing that any pol­i­cy di­rec­tion may ul­ti­mate­ly in­volve the Pres­i­dent act­ing on the ad­vice of Cab­i­net un­der the pro­vi­sions of the Elec­tric­i­ty Act.