The Democratic Labour Party(DLP) has knocked the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) for its apparent silence on Light & Power’s request for an interim increase without a hearing.
DLP spokesman Paul Gibson has emerged as an early vocal critic of the proposed $302 million Green Energy Park. He accused Government of a lack of transparency surrounding the plans.
In a statement, he said that procedure dictates there can be no interim increase without a hearing, and the company cannot be granted its requested confidentiality before intervenors are allowed to object to the rate increase.
Gibson urged the FTC to exercise its mandate under the law and ensure it denies the electricity company any rate increases until the law is followed.
“The Fair Trading Commission will be breaking the Laws of Barbados if they grant any rate increases, temporary or permanent without a hearing,” Gibson declared. “They need to do the job mandated on behalf of the people of this country.”
The DLP candidate also dismissed the proposed Green Energy Park which is said to include a gasification plant as merely another Cahill deal by another name with a lot less detail.
He was referring to a failed idea for an ambitious waste-to-energy plant proposed under the DLP administration of Freundel Stuart. The proposal attracted widespread public scepticism and opposition.
It emerged last year that a waste-to-energy plant as part of a private sector-led Green Energy Park (GEP) was touted by industrialist Ralph Bizzy Williams. Prime Minister Mia Mottley then promised that Barbadians should see a $360 million Green Energy Park supplying 30 megawatts of renewable energy. The green park plan was again floated in the run-up to the UN climate change conference, COP26, last month in Glasgow.
Gibson said: “This Government was relentless in its campaign against the waste-to-energy plant under the former administration. Now they are doing the same thing under the cloak of deep secrecy.
“Where is the required public register of licences? Barbados is a country governed by the rule of law. The Ministry of Energy cannot agree to any plant for investors.
“It is known that suitable feedstock that has high caloric value would generate the most energy. Have the calculations been done to find whether the country has the capacity to run such a plant?
In a series of questions, the DLP spokesman asked whether Barbados will be importing “copious quantities of garbage”, use farmland to grow king grass to fuel the energy park and the impact on food security.
Gibson concluded: “Where is the transparency on which this Government campaigned?” (BT)
