Helping businesses

Businesses, large and small, are hurting when the volume of business took a nose dive since two years ago. More than 2,000 have closed shop and headed home while others are on the wings studying the winds of change. Still others or the so-called “luggage squad” have sold out their business firms while they are still ahead.

The one area where the local government can help businesses muddle through is in utilities expenses. With a reduction in the cost of fuel, there ought to be a concurrent reduction in utility rates especially at a time when most businesses are hurting. While this recommendation may seem a difficult pill to swallow given the nature of government–it isn’t in the business of making a profit–a meeting of key players must be held with the goal to instituting a reasonable reduction in utility rates.

It is to our benefit if the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation considers dropping this cost by a certain percentage to help businesses make ends meet. After all, this is the sector that funnels tax contributions to the local treasury at a time when profits have plunged considerably.

Furthermore, the plan for an 80-megawatt power generation that would cost at least $1.2 billion when turned over to CUC at the end of the lease term is an issue that warrants serious review. In other words, there may not be a demand for more power given that almost every sector has downsized business operations. The effect of such downsizing essentially frees more power to accommodate residential expansion. It is an issue that CUC needs to critically review before rewarding the project to one of several companies bidding for it.

More and more, politicians and bureaucrats must come to terms with the fact that it is the business sector that fuels money into the local treasury. It stands to reason, therefore, that we try, in our own little ways, to empower them to stay in business by reducing utilities charges until the local economy rebounds from the current crisis. If we neglect our duty to join hands in staving off any further assault on the local economy–protecting the health and welfare of the business community–a far more critical situation of bankruptcy would emerge in these isles.

We’re not sure that hardship is what we envision for the people of these isles through adolescent intransigence. Let us learn to work together so to help all sectors make it through the deepening crisis. It’s our survival!