By Dolly Yasa
BACOLOD City – National Electrification Administrator (NEA) Antonio Mariano Almeda challenged newly-installed Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) acting general manager (AGM) Atty. Arnel Lapore to reduce the systems loss of the power utility firm in six months.
Almeda was here Thursday and installed Lapore as AGM as a replacement for Atty. Vic Alvaro who remained as NEA Project Supervisor for Ceneco.
Almeda told reporters in a press conference at the Ceneco boardroom here that he had a productive meeting with the members of the board whom he said approved the appointment of Lapore.
He said that in the meeting that ensued, he asked for the factsheet covering Ceneco’s operation and saw that the systems loss is at 10.13 percent, which for him, per NEA standard, is unacceptable.
“So I challenged the new acting manager to bring down the systems loss to a single digit and hopefully he will be successful in bringing down the rate,” Almeda said.
As for the timeline, Almeda said that he is giving Lapore six months to do so.
But he lamented that Ceneco is undermanned and may have to seek the help of the local government and barangay officials to minimize pilferage and illegal connections.
As to the complaints about the high electric rates of Ceneco, Almeda said that it comes as a surprise to him because, during the meeting, he found out that the generation cost of Ceneco is P10 per kilowatt-hour (kWh).
Generation cost is paid to power producers.
“As far as I am concerned, I have been to several regional coops, the rate Ceneco has right now for its general cost is very much acceptable already considering the ongoing global crisis for fossil fuel and the limited supply of renewable energy sources in this country,” Almeda said.
He pointed out that in some areas like the far north, the generation rate is already P16/kWh.
“If you have P10/kWh here, what is the commotion about?”
During the press conference, Almeda also revealed that he received media releases from consumer groups in this city “bombarding” the Ceneco officials for alleged mismanagement.
“I would like to appeal to these consumer groups that I hope we can practice and do things in circumspect because we might be sowing unnecessary fear and intrigue among our member-consumers. As far as I am concerned, as far as NEA is concerned, there is no reason for us to think of any ill or mismanagement in Ceneco,” Almeda said.
He added that “they are doing everything in trying to negotiate for their rates.”
Almeda further appealed to the different consumer groups to let Ceneco “do their work, it is very counterproductive to insinuate something is going on or something is being mismanaged but the truth and in fact is it is within the prevailing market prices.”
As far as allegations against Ceneco are concerned, Almeda said he has not gone through all the details hurled by some consumer groups here but the main insinuation is mismanagement to which he said “I will rule out mismanagement.”
Lapore, who was a former president of the Ceneco board, said he accepts the challenge of Almeda to reduce the systems loss to a single digit but he said he cannot do it alone as “we need cooperation from top to bottom, synchronization of our actions.”
He also said that “systems loss has nothing to do with the rate, it is Ceneco that suffers if there is a breach of the threshold that we are supposed to reach.”
“So in excess of 8.25 we already absorbed, we subsidized the difference and we not reaching the threshold of 10.13 so the excess of that is being absorbed by Ceneco and it is the cashflow of Ceneco that is being affected,” Lapore pointed out.
