As the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) deliberates over the Barbados Light & Power Company’s (BLPC) request for a hike in electricity rates, one of the intervenors has served notice that he will take the fight as far as the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to protect the interests of consumers.
Chairman of the Coalition of Concerned Cooperatives and president of the Barbados Sustainable Energy Cooperative Society Limited, Retired Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne said on Friday that his fight for a satisfactory outcome relates to two new motions he filed with the FTC after the conclusion of the 15-day public hearing in October this year but within the deadline given for written submissions.
The two motions, copies of which have been obtained by Barbados TODAY, call on the commission to have an oral hearing to set a clear dividend policy for the electric company in its pending ruling and to address the BLPC’s Self Insurance Fund (SIF) from which the trustees withdrew some $100 million and transferred it to income and dividends.
“Once they [FTC] make their decision…there is a court there. I told them so already. That is why you have a court, there is the Caribbean Court [of Justice],” he said in an interview with Barbados TODAY.
Asked if that was a route he was likely to take, the intervenor replied: “Whatever it takes to get justice.”
“This is something I am doing because I represent the public of Barbados. If I do something, I will do it well. I actually think it is crucial to the whole energy situation in Barbados. First, there is the public because I represent the cooperative movement with 200 000 members. My next move is to update them on what the situation is. There is also the local court and, ultimately, there is the Caribbean Court of [Justice],” Lt Col Browne declared.
“I strongly suspect that once the Fair Trading Commission looks at the details and looks at the law, they would do what makes sense, they would
just follow what the law says. I have a lot of confidence they would do that. I would be really disappointed if they did not,” he added.
However, in a letter to Lt Col Browne dated December 21, 2022, the
FTC General Legal Counsel and Commission Secretary Kevin K.D. Webster informed him that although he had made his submissions on time, the motions were defective in that they sought to reopen the hearing which was closed.
“Neither Motion nor Affidavit provided a sufficient basis for reopening the case,” Webster added.
The correspondence, a copy of which Barbados TODAY has, addressed issues that had been outlined in an earlier letter from the intervenor dated December 17.
“The Commission has taken legal advice in respect of the reopening of the case and prefers to accept that advice rather than yours. Indeed, the advice is to the effect that once the hearing has been completed, an intervenor is not entitled to reopen the case unless he can show that the
evidence which he seeks to adduce is relevant and could not have been obtained prior to the conclusion of the case,” the FTC General Legal Counsel pointed out.
But in a follow-up letter, intervenor Browne stated that at no time had the Coalition of Concerned Cooperatives requested the “reopening of the hearing”.
“Nor are we requesting any such action now, or in the future. This red herring was introduced in your initial ‘Order’ of 12 December, instructing us to submit a Motion requesting the Commission to ‘reopen the hearing’,” he wrote.
Lt Col Browne contended that according to the law, a motion is a request for an order or decision of the Commission made in a proceeding. A proceeding is defined as a matter brought before the Commission – in this case, the ongoing BLPC rate application.
He maintained his motions were submitted as a part of the official proceedings and well within the timeframe allocated by the Commission for written submissions.
“The rules clearly say what you have to do to make a motion and I did that. They are trying to make up rules now that I have to do something else, that I have to ask them to do something. That doesn’t make any sense,” he argued.
The lead attorney for BLPC, King’s Counsel Ramon Alleyne declined to comment at this stage.
In a separate December 12 letter to the FTC, another intervenor, Ricky Went, also raised concerns about the company’s depreciation rate for the BLPC’s generation plant.
He said that rate should be determined in a subsequent public hearing, following a depreciation study.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
