As you may have heard BEL and its regulator have been at war for months because the power company says that the PUC has tied its hands – and is not allowing it to make the expenditure for new installations. The PUC says BEL is just plain “bad-acting” because it didn’t get a rate increase and is now trying to blame the regulator for its own corporate non compliance. Well, on Friday, November 7TH the PUC will issue an order, telling BEL that it must do, what it has been unwilling to do. Avery told us what will be in that order and his Minister told us why BEL is “bex.”
John Avery,
“Basically the order will say that they need to comply with all conditions of their license and it will point out specific areas that they need to comply with because those are areas that we deem they haven’t have been in compliance with over the last few months and then we will make some provisions in the order that we can measure that compliance.
BEL can say they are resuming the services, we are doing them, but they can delay. For example they can take three months to do a simple installation. So we could set certain provisions that set a deadline by which you are supposed to perform these services otherwise we won’t be able to measure their compliance effectively.”
Jules Vasquez,
And if BEL fails to comply?
John Avery,
“Then we will take the matter to the court and that is when the court can fine them or impose penalties on them for disobeying the order.”
Hon. Melvin Hulse,
“The utilities that we used to have in their own way, they’ve had these contracts and they’ve had all these things okay. How they got it is a moot point, the fact is that they have it. We as a government have to ensure that, ‘hey utility this is your obligation. You have an obligation to provide it and we as a government has an obligation to make sure it gets out there.’ And the utilities have been fussing simply because we will not let them have their own way. That is the gist of it.”
BEL sent out a release earlier this week saying that it is experiencing acute financial difficulties and thus needs customers to pay the full cost of service installation up front. The Power Company has asked the PUC to enlist the counsel of an independent expert to address allegations that it has acted unreasonably or improperly.
