Candidates being interviewed for two GEBE Director posts

~ Govt still mum about relief ~

PHILIPSBURG--GEBE Supervisory Board Chairman Julius Lambert said on Tuesday that the board would "eventually be preparing a recommendation of candidates to the shareholder [GEBE Shareholding Foundation, ed.] for appointment to the positions of CFO and COO, who will be jointly responsible for the management of the company's business."

As reported before by The Daily Herald, a Managing Board of two persons will be put in place: a Chief Operations Officer (COO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Lambert also called the CFO a "Chief Executive Officer."

In the meantime, despite efforts by this newspaper to obtain clarification from government about the relief on their GEBE bills that Minister of Economic Affairs Franklin Meyers assured the population they would have, there has been no explanation from the Minister about the promised relief.

While some residents have been reporting either no relief or reductions of only NAf. 10 to NAf. 15 in their monthly electricity bills, some have been reporting even higher utility bills since GEBE implemented its new tariff structure on August 1.

GEBE's outgoing Managing Director William Brooks had warned the public not to expect any drastic relief after the new structure was implemented. But this was refuted quickly by Meyers, who said the public would receive relief from high utility bills while government looked at an independent study to determine whether the tariff structure would remain or a new approach was needed.

While the Minister promised that there would be relief, he did not say by how much.

With regard to the recruitment of the two directors, Lambert said, "The standard recruitment and selection procedure is being followed and the Supervisory Board is being assisted in this effort by a professional bureau with vast experience in this field."

He said the first task of the new Managing Board would be to focus on the urgent reduction of financial losses caused by "inefficiencies in the operation and waste caused by losses in the electricity and water distribution network."

He said the new Managing Board simultaneously would develop a five-year business plan that would be executed according to a number of priorities, including improving the financial performance of the company, reduction of the cost of electricity and water to the consumer, improvement of service reliability and service in general, improvement of the employees' morale, protection of the environment and improved safety.

Lambert did not say exactly when he expected the Supervisory Board to make its recommendations to GEBE's Shareholding Foundation.

Source: http://www.thedailyherald.com/islands/1-islands-news/20223-candidates-being-interviewed-for-two-gebe-director-posts.html

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