Don’t blame nature: Council
5-Nov-2008 08:23 AM

The Consumer Council of Fiji says the Fiji Electricity Authority (FEA) should not blame nature for the looming energy crisis.

Council chief executive Premila Kumar in a statement yesterday said FEA was “creating a helpless situation” by blaming poor rainfall figures at the Monasavu hydro dam for the power crisis. She said the poor rainfall argument had been refuted by the Fiji Meteorology Department.

“Domestic consumers are constantly being warned by FEA of possible power shedding measures while businesses are to resort to their own generators in the bid to control escalating costs of the Authority,” said Kumar.

“The council believes that FEA may be having a hidden agenda and is blaming nature to achieve its agenda. Now that the global oil prices have dropped significantly and may likely reduce further, consumers are expecting the complete removal of the FEA fuel surcharge,” she added.

Kumar said the 2007 FEA Annual Report showed that the authority made $15.1 million in the year from fuel surcharges alone. “Therefore contributing to the financial profit for FEA for the year at $14.7 million before tax.”

“This is despite the fact that 64.8 percent of energy was generated through hydro in 2007 with 35.2 percent generation from diesel. Why then were consumers asked to pay fuel surcharge given the hydro to diesel generation ratio for 2007?” said Kumar.

“Furthermore, 2004 was the worst year for rainfall figures in the country at 3425mm because of the drought experience. Even then, FEA was able to produce 57 percent of energy from hydro in a year of poor rainfall."

The council claims that FEA had poor planning and inability to meet the high demand with sufficient energy supply.

“FEA seems to be holding the country at ransom for probably wanting to seek the full implementation of the Commerce Commission approved tariff rates for 2007, maintaining the fuel surcharge and to have the full duty concession on all thermal generating fuels (ie IDO and HFO) restored,” said Kumar. The council is now urging the government to consider the removal of self-regulation of FEA.

“The removal of FEA’s regulatory powers is the only solution to making FEA accountable to having proper plans in place and clear predictions of its operations. Corporatisation has clearly failed as a solution to make FEA operations efficient but has instead resulted in the government becoming reliant on FEA and dancing to FEA’s tune while consumers and the economy as a whole suffers,” said Kumar.

“The government needs to listen to the plight of consumers and traders by refusing to be dictated to by FEA and taking the critcal step to remove the regulatory function from FEA so that it can hold FEA accountable with stringent monitoring in place,” she added.