LEGAZPI CITY: For over a year
now, some 250,000 power consumers of the bankrupt Albay Electric Cooperative
(Aleco) have been making advance payments inserted in their monthly billing and
many of them were not even aware of the scheme.
Called the Special Payment
Agreement (SPA), the scheme according to Aleco officials was a result of a
special assembly held among consumers February last year.
Collection of SPA was
started in September 2011 and to end in August 2014.
The so-called SPA was intended
to settle Aleco’s close to P1 billion in outstanding bills being demanded by
power suppliers.
Under the agreement, consumers
may use their SPA payments for future bills without any interest.
But many residents complained
they were not aware of the alleged assembly and that if ever there was one, it
could have been attended by only a few, in connivance with the inefficient
officers of the problematic local electric cooperative.
They lamented that Aleco bills
consisted of inserted charges that they were never aware of until they were
exposed in media reports. An Aleco official said there were some 200 consumers
who attended the special district assembly.
But this number appears to be
only a drop in the total number of power consumers in the power coop’s coverage
area which consisted of the three congressional districts of the entire
province of Albay.
Aleco has been placed once
again under the management control of the National Electrification
Administration early last year in an effort by local officials headed by Albay
Gov Joey Sarte Salceda to save it from total collapse.
Three years ago, Salceda
proposed that Aleco be privatized but this was rebuked by certain consumer
groups, which included the church.
Aleco officials and the members
of its Board had been accused of gross mismanagement and graft and corruption
that led to the problematic situation that the power coop is now in.
Consumers said they should not
suffer for the crimes committed by previous Aleco officials.
They said the SPA being
collected which represents 10 percent of their monthly bill is highly immoral.
Consumers also complained about
the alleged padded billing being imposed by Aleco collectors, else they face
power disconnection.
A pastor complained she used to pay P2,000 for
her prayer center every month but was surprised when her latest monthly bill
ballooned to P10,000.
She said despite her protest,
she was forced to pay or face disconnection.
A certain Generoso Butial who
stays alone in his house in Tabaco City and uses power only during nighttime
said he used to pay a monthly bill of P50.
All of the sudden, he said he
received a bill of more than P500, followed by P400-plus, then P500-plus, P300-plus, then P90.
He said he filed a complaint
and his meter was taken out by Aleco personnel for examination after
investigation yielded no findings of possible pilferages from other sources.
Bishop Joel Baylon, chair of
Aleco Crisis Management Committee appealed to consumers to support the SPA
saying it was the only noble way to share in settling Aleco bills lest the
whole power coop face disconnection by its power suppliers.
Earlier, Energy Secretary
Almendras warned that by December this year, Albay may suffer power
disconnection unless Aleco could come up with at least P1 billion to settle its
obligations with the power suppliers and producers.
A crisis management committee,
in partnership with NEA supervisors, was created following the abolition of the
Aleco board of directors in an effort to formulate management solution for the
ailing Aleco.
Bishop Baylon admitted that
many have rejected the SPA scheme because consumers have the option anyway to
disregard SPA in paying their monthly bills.
With the controversy on the
SPA, Bishop Baylon said Aleco may hardly reach 20% of the targeted collection
by December 2012.
He added that since the SPA
scheme, only P158 million has been collected as of August 2012. – Bicol Mail
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