Condonation of electric coop’s loan interest pushed

CEBU, Philippines - Cebu Fourth District Representative Benhur Salimbangon and two partylist lawmakers are pushing for the condonation on interest of Bantayan Electric Cooperative’s loans charged by National Power Corporation-Small Power Utilities Group (NPC-SPUG) amounting to P14.9 million.

Salimbangon, together with Rep. Michael Angelo Rivera of 1-Care-PL and Rep. Rodel Batocabe of AKO Bicol-PL, filed last September 3 House Bill No. 4955 which is now in the Committee on Energy.

“BANELCO is experiencing some financial difficulties and is in arrears with National Electrification Administration as of March 2014 NEA’s Financial Report,” Salimbangon said.

On January 1993, BANELCO was given certificate of clearance for automatic prompt payment discount by NPC for its good payment records.

It was therefore granted the privilege to automatically deduct the three percent prompt payment discount from its monthly power bill starting December 1992 provided that it is paid on or before the end of each month immediately following the billing month.

Failure on the part of BANELCO to pay its power bill on or before the due date shall revoke the privilege.

In 1999, BANELCO experienced shortage of power supply in the island and informed NPC-SPUG of their plight.

Despite the problem, BANELCO agreed to avail of the PPD and pay its power bills while NPC-SPUG promised to exert best efforts to normalize power situation.

BANELCO’s power bill payment was accepted by NPC-SPUG but PPD was reportedly not considered.

BANELCO failed to transmit the payments on its due date reportedly due to the recurring poor weather condition that forced the suspension of boat trips to Cebu City.

The accumulated disallowed PPD was P1.8 million based on NPC books and remains to be outstanding power bills payable by BANELCO and was imposed an accumulated interest charges of P13.1 million.

“The failure to transmit payments on time was not deliberate on BANELCO’s part as it was caused by very bad weather making the transmission of the amount physically impossible,” Salimbangon said.

BANELCO’s June 2014 monthly financial statistical report shows that it has no outstanding payable or loan with NPC-SPUG.

However, due to NPC’s policy to apply power bill payments of the distribution utilities to the “onerous accounts” first, all other succeeding monthly power bill payments were already insufficient to pay the current bills.

It is only in the book of accounts of NPC-SPUG that the disallowed payment discount remains to be settled, said Salimbangon.

Since 2008, Salimbangon added, BANELCO has been requesting NPC for the condonation of the interest and surcharges on its power bills which was not attributable to BANELCO’s fault or negligence.  (FREEMAN)