The legal counsel of the Utilities Consumers Alliance of Negros said they will ask Central Negros Electric Cooperative to provide them with any Board resolution passed by the present or past members of the Ceneco Board of Directors stating the coop's policy direction to address its systems loss.

Vicente Petierre lll Friday said UCAN believes that at present the systems loss of Ceneco is at an alarming level. In their letter they emphasized that UCAN and other consumers' groups are partners of Ceneco in ensuring its viability.

He said the matter was raised during their meeting Thursday when they discussed the memorandum of agreement between Ceneco and Aboitiz Power Corporation.

Petierre said the technical working group of Ceneco had recommended that the MOA with Aboitiz Power should not to be approved. In short, it temporarily died but it can still be resurrected, he said.

He said UCAN wants to be vigilant particularly against the privatization of Ceneco because there might be a possibility of an application for Ceneco to enter the Cooperative Development Authority, which can be used as a camouflage by those who have ill intentions to privatize Ceneco.

They might advertise that Ceneco should be included in the CDA and will have the consumers agree to the idea. But the truth of the matter is that it will be the start of the privatization of Ceneco considering that once it joins the CDA it can no longer be totally regulated by the National Electrification Administration, Petierre said.

“This means that somehow, there might be an opening for the transaction of the privatization of Ceneco. We are not saying it will be Aboitiz or any other company. But what we are saying is that once Ceneco joins the CDA, there is a very big possibility that it will be privatized,” he said.

Petierre said that once Ceneco is privatized the consumers of Bacolod will suffer because the price per kilowatt hour, including transmission cost, line charges and even administrative expenses will be shouldered by them.

Once privatized, the company will be geared towards a profit oriented approach unlike in the present set up. So, it is the stand of UCAN that if possible, up to the end, Ceneco should stay under the regulatory power of NEA, he said.*CGS

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