The ultimate tragedy of the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission’s (T&TEC) “protected list” expose is that it makes the commission look like it has been acting under political directives to do something inappropriate. It revealed the political directorate was using power and influence to shield certain political and corporate entities from payment of electricity bills at taxpayers’ expense. And third and most important, it reinforces the view in the public mind that ordinary citizens are pressured to pay and harassed with power cuts, while the privileged are given a free rein by unwritten rules that put them in a category of untouchables above other citizens.
All of this is taking place against a background where increased electricity rates have been under discussion for some time and T&TEC has had difficulty meeting its operational costs, although it is a monopoly supplier. So, T&TEC gets, on average, over half a billion dollars in subsidy annually, but it also owes the National Gas Company $3.8 billion in accumulated debt for a natural gas supply, and then shields these corporate and politically protected customers from paying what they owe. The level of economic distortion, then, is extremely high.
But that does not change the concern that there is a protected T&TEC list, even if no one knows how it started, how it expanded, no written policy, nothing in the board minutes, no criteria defined anywhere, and nothing official, just an institutional practice that had its origins in political directives.
A rationale can be established for a policy not to cut electricity supply for identified customers. This can be done based on national security issues, essential services recognition, sustainability of the economy, provision of public goods, avoidance of diplomatic embarrassment, and embarrassment of the State. And it would seem that initially, this was the thinking behind the establishment of such a list.
The expansion in the decade 2015 to 2025, however, which included government ministers, parliamentarians, private sector entities and alleged party financiers, seems to have been more arbitrary, less justifiable and without institutional oversight and requirements for accountability.
For T&TEC to restore its credibility, the list needs to be dismantled, audited and replaced with a legally sound policy that can withstand scrutiny. This means no individual, regardless of office, status or political connections, must be insulated from the standard civic responsibilities to which every other citizen is bound.
There is another side to this. Ordinary customers must not be pounced upon when they miss a payment. A customer relations desk can track delinquents early to facilitate late payments and to assess them for the utility’s assistance list, which is also not public but for which the criteria are clear.
In other words, there must be rational rules, a legal basis for exceptions, customer care, accountability, transparency, service excellence and economic viability and sustainability.
This matter erupted as something of a scandal when Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar revealed in Parliament that there was a protected list at T&TEC which shielded partisan favourites from disconnection despite the fact that they had outstanding debts to the company. Former Public Utilities ministers of the People’s National Movement responded that there was nothing sinister nor partisan about the list and that it could be rationally explained; that it was meant as a courtesy to avoid embarrassing situations, and that it was in no way meant to absolve individuals, entities or companies from paying bills. But T&TEC found itself scrambling for documentation and a legal basis for its policy.
This protected list fiasco is a stark reminder of what happens when institutional informalities are allowed to supersede structured accountability. It is clear that initially, this practice may have been born out of innocent administrative courtesy. Its expansion under the previous administration, though, and perhaps the secrecy of it, has prompted the Prime Minister to interpret it as having a more insidious political intent. In any case, an unmapped, unrecorded privilege extended to the powerful will always look like corruption to a public wrestling with the realities of economic and financial survival.
The current policy by T&TEC needs to be condemned. Whatever replaces it needs to be rational, transparent and non-partisan.
What this revelation has laid bare is the intersection of institutional governance, administrative drift and the weaponisation of State mechanisms for political purposes. The revelation also highlights the sharp contrast between administrative intent and public perception. To the ordinary citizen, such a practice just does not seem fair or right.
