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HEIt is high time for the government to require all utilities to become public. This is to ensure that their clients are fully protected against poor services and inadequate services.
customer service.
Government regulators are often not up to the task, so extra supervision is needed, especially for companies that provide the critical infrastructure people rely on to do their daily tasks, whether at work or in the workplace. in the comfort of their homes.
The importance of rigid supervision has recently been highlighted when complaints began to worsen against the poor service provided by Iloilo's firm. Panay Electric Co. (Peco) and the exorbitant rates they charged. The scenario was not imagined from nowhere. There had been written protests from people who were fed up with Peco's billing excesses, arrogance and wasteful facilities. The Franchise Committee of the House was busy dealing with the complaints of nearly 1,800 people who claimed to have been victims of the company's overload and its frequent power cuts.
With the unanimous adoption Monday by the House Senate of Bill 8032 on its third and final reading, the fate of Peco is sealed. The bill grants More Electric Power Corp., a company owned and controlled by business magnate Enrique K. Razon Jr., with the statutory franchise for the distribution of electricity in the city of Iloilo. I do not generally agree with what the two chambers are doing – with all the scathing and dirty politicking they generate – but I welcome their collective decision to end the Peco Congress franchise for the sake of electricity consumers of Iloilo.
What is commendable is that the franchise approved by the House and the Senate requires it to set aside 30% of its inventory to the public. BusinessWise has not obtained any other details, but it is likely that the company will issue an initial public offering for savings, the price of which is still being adjusted.
One of the main reasons why a company stays private is the strict reporting requirements. A private company such as Peco is not subject to the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which require an annual report and a third-party audit. The distribution of electricity must operate in a free market environment and the price that the company can charge for the power of transmission must be monitored and regulated.
At present, the House of Representatives and the Senate would develop their different versions, in particular the Senate's recommendation to grant Peco a temporary permit allowing it to continue operating until it has completely ceded its activities to More Power. A bicameral committee will be convened to resolve all issues, including Peco's proposed two-year transition period at More Power. The unified version of the House and Senate will then be sent to President Duterte for signature.
For 95 years, Peco has been Iloilo's sole distributor of electricity. Unfortunately, he fell into the trap of complacency. The company must have thought that it would be inconceivable that the moment comes when it will lose its franchise. The consumers of Iloilo have enough! According to data obtained by the Congress from BusinessWise, an Edcel Castro from Rizal Street blamed himself for receiving a staggering bill of 180,000 pesos, while his previous monthly bills averaged only 8,000 pesos. The official complaint he sent to Peco fell on deaf ears. All the company could tell him was that he had the option to pay in installments or lose his electrical connection. The case of Castro was just one of the many complaints against Peco that we were able to review.
According to the same records, reports that the company has undersized and congested tankers have been reported. leaning poles; disrupted service interruptions and unsecured clearances from lines, substations and transformers, all of which have resulted in frequent power outages and service interruptions. The sole distributor of electricity in Iloilo for almost a century, perhaps surviving many of the city's inhabitants, Peco must have thought he had the birthright to continue to dominate the electricity distribution landscape. Iloilo.
Clearly, Peco has not fully understood and understood the situation, including how its own customers perceive it in the city of Iloilo. It's really sad, given the history it shares with about four generations of the city's population.
The recent statement by Peco President Mariano Cacho in a live TV interview that there are no consumer complaints against his company is therefore appalling. Cacho sought to illustrate Razon's lie when he claimed that it was the thousands of complaints from his own clients that convinced him and his company to resume power distribution activities in Iloilo.
As Razon pointed out in a public statement last week, the truth is that it was his own clients who condemned him for his poor service, high electricity rates, obsolete and dilapidated equipment and his penchant for overcharging of its customers. Cacho's categorical denial that no consumer claim has been proven merely proves that he and his relatives, who ran Iloilo's electricity distribution service, acted like oligarchs of the past, gaining ground in the market. money to the detriment of the people they were supposed to serve. Razon rightly cited Peco's practice of declaring annual dividends in the hundreds of millions of pesos, instead of investing such funds to improve its transmission facilities, as further evidence that Peco had avoided its responsibility to serve the population Iloilo.
Assuming that Peco finally saw the light and decided to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize its transmission facilities, this commitment was taken too late.
A franchise is a privilege and not a right even for a company that has existed for nearly a century. It is granted by the Congress to an entity that can be trusted to provide a quality public service, if not the best, to the people.
For comments, suggestions, write to me at [email protected]
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