Absorb costs, Veco urged

A CONSUMER group called on the Visayan Electric Co. (Veco) to drop its plan to recover the P34 million cost it incurred after one of its transformers was damaged last year.

“Please have mercy on us…the price of rice is already high and now we’ll be saddled by higher power rates,” Elia Sabang of the Consumers Group for Economic Welfare (Crew) said in yesterday’s City Council public hearing.

Veco representatives said the 5.92 centavos add-on cost to be passed on to its 340,000 consumers for three months will be used to recover the P34 million Veco spent buying power from the Cebu Private Power Corp. to replace the supply lost when the transformer was damaged by lightning.

The purchase offset the supply deficit caused by the temporary loss of their transformer which provides power to Mandaue City, Banilad in Cebu City and the vicinity of the Waterfront Hotel and Ayala Center Cebu.

Another P12 to P13 may be added to the electric bill of households using 100 kwh if Veco’s application to pass on the cost to consumers is approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC).

Flaviano Sanson of barangay Tinago asked Veco officials to be guided by their conscience and to absorb the cost of the power purchase since Veco is a “a multi-million peso company.”

“I am asking the City Council to fight the unfair petition of Veco,” he said.

The Cebu City Council held a hearing to clarify Veco’s petition to recover P34 million spent after one of their transformers was damaged by lightning in May last year.

The transformer is located at the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) compound in barangay Cabancalan in Mandaue City.

Lyndon Jayme, Veco’s asst. vice president for utility economics, told the council that they have two petitions pending with ERC.

The first seeks to recover the P34 million they spent buying power from CPPC.

A second petition seeks the ERC’s permission for Veco to spend P28 million for the repair of their damaged transformer at their own cost.

Jayme said they leased from NGCP a power barge stationed in Bohol to supply the needed power at the service area in the fourth month at P1.2 million per month for the next six months.

Veco is paying P1.2 million per month for the said lease for a period of six months which ends on Sept. 25. Jayme said they hope to finish the repairs by then.

The council yesterday moved to create a three-person committee that would validate Veco’s claims. Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac