FTC says it will consider ‘whole record’ in ruling on review of rate decision
By Emmanuel Joseph
Barbadians are in for another wait for the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) decision on increased electricity rates.
On Tuesday, after a day and a half of a scheduled three-day public hearing, the Barbados Light and Power Company (BLPC) and intervenors ended their oral submissions and responses before the commission regarding the utility company’s motion for a review and variation of its February 15 ruling.
But no date was given by the panel for a decision on whether it will alter that ruling in which it ordered the BLPC to comply with a series of instructions regarding its request for an 11.9 per cent increase on its base rates.
“I believe we would have sought some areas of clarification and we will now consider the whole record to make our determination, and we will report our decision based on the whole record,” chairman of the rate hearing Dr Donley Carrington declared before adjourning the matter, which was held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, sine die.
“I just want to remind that any information that was not part of the motion [to review or vary] would not be considered. We would only be considering the information that is relevant to the motion before us.”
The power company is challenging certain orders in the ruling that the regulator has put on hold pending the outcome of the hearing that concluded today.
As a precursor to its final judgement on BLPC’s application for a rate hike, the FTC issued an interim compliance decision in February, after its first rate hearing late last year, which ordered the power company to return to the drawing board and adjust its calculations and assumptions using a rate of return of 7.47 per cent. The commission had thrown out the 8.79 per cent rate of return that the BLPC used to calculate its requested increase in base rates.
The company was also directed to establish a regulatory liability account and place in it the $99.5 million that its trustees previously removed from the Self-Insurance Fund (SIF) which is used to self-insure against damage and consequential loss.
Lead counsel for the power company Ramon Alleyne KC on Monday charged that the FTC had exceeded its jurisdiction and failed to follow established regulatory principles in its interim ruling.
Alleyne responded to the presentations made by the intervenors following his submissions on Tuesday.
He charged that the intervenor team of Tricia Watson and David Simpson made several submissions that were skewed in terms of their interpretation of fact and law.
The senior attorney also took the Acting Public Counsel Douglas Frederick to task, saying he could not allow him to mischaracterise the facts or confuse the FTC as to the process and the matters on which it must rule.
“I would say that a majority of Public Counsel’s arguments were premised on either a misunderstanding or a misapplication of the principles in a review such as this,” Alleyne argued.
He also took umbrage with the term “illegal defunding” used by intervenor Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne, President of the Barbados Sustainable Energy Cooperative Society, in reference to the withdrawal of funds from the SIF.
“No evidence is before this commission that supports an allegation of illegality. There is no breach of the trust, there is no breach of the enabling legislation, and there is no breach of any direction of the FTC. It is loose and dangerous language – I can only assume issued to excite persons who may not know the full facts,” the BLPC’s lawyer declared.
He ended by repeating the power company’s request that the commission review its findings and vary its order.
Among the submissions to the FTC that were rejected in the BLPC application was the request to recover, in the new base rates, some of the money from the cost of a five-megawatt energy storage device.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
