An intervenor grouping representing more than 200 000 people on Thursday has urged the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) to reconsider its refusal to release Light & Power’s financial performance records as the utility seeks a rate hike.
Lieutenant Colonel Trevor Browne, who leads the Cooperative Coalition intervenors — an alliance within the substantive cooperative movement — formally requested that the FTC provide the company’s financial reports to all intervenors as a means of maintaining confidence in the regulatory process.
Raising concerns about the role of regulatory agencies in safeguarding public interests, Lt Col Browne pledged his group’s backing for fellow utility intervenor Ricky Went’s call for full disclosure of key financial reports from the electric company.
“This call by Mr Went has the full support of the CoopEnergy team of intervenors, and indeed, it calls into question the fundamental role of the various regulatory agencies in Barbados as they relate to safeguarding the public interests,” he said.
“The role of national regulatory agencies must be to ensure that monopolistic agencies are not allowed to take unfair advantage of helpless customers by biased, illegal or unprofessional practices. This process is best achieved through transparency, open dialogue, and public discussion. It is for exactly this reason that the law provides for the intervenors to participate fully in the process.”
He continued: “The intervenor team of the Cooperative Coalition therefore fully supports the call from fellow intervenor Ricky Went and team, and we join their call for BLPC to demonstrate clearly that, notwithstanding the extraordinarily long delays which, for the most part, they initiated, Barbados businesses and individual consumers are not currently being unfairly exploited by the ‘interim rates’ which they managed to convince the FTC to impose. We also urge the FTC to review its position, and to make BLPC’s financial reports available to all intervenors — as a means of ensuring that trust and confidence remain in the regulatory process.”
Light & Power, which in February 2021 applied to the Fair Trading Commission for an 11.9 per cent increase in its revenue requirement, was granted an interim rise at half that rate in a September 2022 decision. The company maintains it has fully met all disclosure obligations for audited accounts and rate filings under current regulations.
The FTC has continued to defend its refusal to release any additional financial statements, asserting that it is acting within legal parameters and maintaining a fair balance between consumer interests and regulatory requirements.
The commission’s Chief Executive Officer Brian Reece recently told Barbados TODAY that the regulator had already denied Went’s request for further financial statements and would not provide the documents, given the case’s status before the High Court.
“In the meantime,” Lt Col Browne argued, “customers continue to pay interim rates based solely on BLPC’s claims of ‘hardship’ in 2021, and on the FTC’s decision to err on the side of caution. In such particular circumstances, we would think that it is incumbent upon both the BLPC and the FTC to share information with the public that would assure everyone that the interim rates are at least reasonable, and are not exploitative.” (EJ)
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