THE Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) has been operating at a loss for the past nine years.
However, T&TEC’s General Manager Kelvin Ramsook defended the commission when concerns about the continuous loss were raised by Senator Saddam Hosein.
He said the commission continued to put mechanisms in place to improve performance.
Ramsook was speaking during a virtual meeting with a Joint Select Committee on Land and Physical Infrastructure on Wednesday.
He said, “The commission has been operating with an income of roughly $3.2 billion and an expenditure of $4.3 billion. So that puts us at a difference of $1.1 billion which is really the difference, the loss related to our operations.”
In addition, he said, the tariff revenue accounted for 37cents per kilowatt hour and when moved from that the expenditure it was 48 cents per kilowatt hour.
The general manager said, “Expenditure is broken up into generation which is $1.63 billion. The cost of gas is roughly $1 billion , the cost of salary and wages, employee related benefits, which is the total cost is $995 million dollars.”
“Capital, local and foreign as well as taxes and others is at $600 million which puts you at $4.3 billion dollars,” he added.
He indicated that while looking at percentages, the majority of that expenditure was related to generation which was a combination of conversion and gas that the $1.63 billion plus the $1 billion which is $2.63 billion.
Ramsook said 67.68 % was a rough estimation of the pie in relation to the commission’s operations with salary and wages being 23% of business operations. He added that the commission operated at a loss of 11 cents per kilowatt hour.
He said, “To get a value moving away from that $1.1 billion, some item has to shift.”
Ramsook said the tariff revenue may have to shift up.
He said, “In an expenditure category, we have fixed PPA (Power Purchase Agreement); four agreements expiring in the years 2029, 2037, 2041.”
Ramsook said those PPAs existed in the system based on operations reiterating that package is part of the $1.63 billion that is paid.
He said the cost of gas used on the system accounts for $1 billion which totals to $2.63 billion.
“Then you have to purchase materials, taxes which is roughly about $600 million,” he added as he stressed that the question should be asked on “where to shift?”
The general manager said, “Commission has made it clear that it has 2, 924 employees of which 320 are temporary.”
He stated that their customer base was 502,000 which he believed was adequate and met T&TEC requirements.
Despite operating at a loss, T&TEC continued to provide quality service to its customers, Ramsook said.
