PHILIPSBURG--Two weeks after Minister of Economic Affairs Franklin Meyers announced that government would instruct GEBE "this week" (as in two weeks ago) to implement a particular tariff instead of the tariff that government gave GEBE conditional permission to implement on August 1, the company has reportedly not received any such instruction.
After acknowledging that GEBE's new tariff structure had not provided relief from high utility bills, Meyers said government would issue the instruction based on what he called "international norms," not on any study by government or the Economic Affairs Department.
On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Theo Heyliger could not offer any comment on the status of the instruction; neither could Secretary General of Economic Affairs Miguel DeWeever. Minister Meyers is currently off-island.
GEBE currently charges 29 cents per kilowatt hour and government intends to charge between 23 and 25 cents per kilowatt hour. Meyers said his decision had been forced by GEBE's lack of cooperation in providing information regarding the makeup of its tariff structure and fuel clause so that government could ascertain "true costs."
However, The Daily Herald understands that since Paul Marshall has been appointed as interim director while Managing Director Brooks is on vacation, government has been receiving information it requested.
Once the instruction for the new tariffs is given, the tariffs will remain in place until Bureau Telecommunication and Post (BT&P) Cura�ao completes its scrutiny of the figures associated with GEBE's tariff structure. BT&P will then advise government how to proceed as of January 2012. However, BT&P requires information from GEBE.
The Minister could not say how government's tariffs would affect GEBE's investments and if those investments would still be met, if operational expenses could be covered, if GEBE would still be in compliance with its debt service ratio of 1.5 with its major lender, how losses would be increased on Saba and St. Eustatius, considering that tariffs would have to be reduced there as well and if the cost structures of the "international norms" that he referred to were the same as GEBE's.
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