The T&T Electricity Commission has been operating at a loss for the past seven years and its chairman is saying that the board of directors is now looking at whether there is need to trim the fat at the utility which has close to 3,000 employees an annual wage bill of over a billion dollars.
Officials of the public utility company appeared before the Public Accounts Committee of Parliament yesterday when concerns were raised about issues of productivity, and absenteeism at the company which has been unable to pay its bills to the National Gas Company for the supply of natural gas.
T&TEC chairman Keith Sirju admitted the company has been operating at a loss since 2011. He said the annual wage bill stood at $900m, overtime claims $120m and payment to contractors was $100m.
The utility’s financials came into focus yesterday when Sirju and Ramsook and other top company officials appeared before the PAC to discuss the audited financials of the commission for the period 2012 to 2015.
Sirju revealed that from 2011 to present, T&TEC’s income cannot meet its expenditure, “every year for the past seven years we are running at a loss that’s a hurdle that has to be overcome.”
He said the Board is now looking at “whether there is fat to be trimmed.”
And the Board is also looking at “whether it is related to the price at which we sell electricity which has not been adjusted for eight years.”
In recent times, two other public utilities have come into the public microscope. WASA’s management has also admitted that the company was overstaffed by as much as 2,000 workers and TSTT which has been a profitable state enterprise has began to cut costs by closing several of its outlets.
The action by TSTT has prompted protests by the representing Communication Workers’ Union.
TSTT says it has offered the workers the opportunity to be redeployed elsewhere and given other opportunities.
T&TEC General Manager Kelvin Ramsook told the parliamentary committee yesterday that the utility is now in discussions at the Ministry of Labour with the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union seeking to reclassify contract “drivers” as craftsmen to increase the pool of crews and to increase productivity.
“We don’t want to send anybody home. Through attrition, people will go but I have 215 people with the position ‘drivers’ that I could have 100 two-man crews. The craftsman can get higher pay if he gets to a technical level he does not have to lose his job,” Ramsook said.
He said they had looked at other territories including Jamaica, Barbados and Florida Flight and Power. “We have given the evidence, we not saying we sending anybody home. We will train those who want to be trained,” he said.
The matter is now at the Ministry of Labour, he said, adding that “this will significantly solve the productivity issue that we have, what we want are linesmen, electricians, crew supervisors, all of them must be able to drive a vehicle and get on the job site.”
The issue of absenteeism at the Commission was so drastic that the company had to “cut pay for people on leave.”
“When we do checks, you on leave (sick leave) but you out there doing something else. When you are home you should be recuperating and going to the doctor,” he said.
In addition, the utility, which says it places a high priority on the reliability of supply to customers, is paying for 400 megawatts of electricity which it is not using and is also facing an increase in the price for natural gas which it pays to NGC. T&TEC owes NGC billions of dollars for natural gas.
STATE COMPANIES OWE $M
While T&TEC moves on the average consumers by disconnecting their electricity supply at a cost, the PAC heard that it’s not the same for State-related companies which owe millions.
Sirju said, “the breakdown shows a lot of delinquent customers, WASA, TSTT sometimes Petrotin and the like.”
The TSTT debt was put at $51 million and is part of a dispute for pole rentals which the Commission hopes will be resolved soon.
Sirju admitted that one of the challenges the Commission faces is that it cannot turn off power from WASA.
A private company Desalcott which provides water to WASA owes T&TEC $36 m.
Ramsook told the PAC that in analysing the records, 23 per cent of the Commission’s expenditure is “related to salary and wages,” but the majority is related to conversion and gas generation, where the utility has “little control over.
NEW INITIATIVES
The Commission plans to introduce solar street lights in the Manzanilla area. Ramsook said, “the process is completed and we are waiting for final approval.”
Ramsook said 1.5 per cent of the population is without electricity and for consumers with power the Commission strives to ensure that power outage last no longer than an average one and a half hours. In Tobago, the average is 2.7 hours, something which he said the Commission is hoping to improve to get to the national average of 1.5 hours.