Zamboanga Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco) district director Noel Tarrazona has exposed to mediamen a document showing Napocor had borrowed $ 800 million last year and it has also announced that it will borrow another $ 700 million this year or a total debt of $ 1.5 billion or P 76.5 billion from its foreign creditors.
Tarrazona described Napocor’s move as alarming and expressed fears that consumers might again be the ones paying this foreign debt by passing these charges to them.
“We want to ask Napocor how will this money be spent and who will pay all these debts,” Tarrazona said.
The document also showed that foreign debts of Napocor now add to $ 9.1 billion. This does not include its obligations to local creditors, which also amount to billion of pesos, thus, Napocor’s foreign and domestic debts total about one third of our total debts.
“What we fear here is that the government might make electric cooperatives including Zamcelco a collector of people’s money to pay Napocor’s debt,” Tarrazona said.
Tarrazona said that he already brought this issue to Zamcelco board President Gilbert Alvarez for possible board action.
A few years ago, consumers had launched mounting complaints when Power Purchased Adjustment charges were imposed on consumers monthly electric bills.
“If this is the case, then we expect another round of power rate increase and this will burden ordinary consumers again,” a concerned consumer said. (PRESS RELEASE)
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