CUC wants surcharge revived

Commonwealth Utilities Corp. vice chair Herman P. Sablan vowed yesterday to never support the 3.5-cent, across-the-board fuel surcharge being pushed by the CUC management.

Sablan made this statement amid new efforts by the CUC management to revive the proposed fuel surcharge regulation, which was nullified by a 3-3 vote by the six other CUC board members on Nov. 30, 2004.

Sablan was on an off-island business trip at the time and was not able to cast the critical vote that could have laid the issue to rest once and for all.

Upon the management’s insistence, the CUC board of directors is scheduled to discuss the proposed fuel surcharge yet again in a meeting tomorrow.

But in an interview yesterday, Sablan said that while he supports the implementation of a fuel surcharge, he cannot vote in favor of slapping all electricity consumers with an additional fee of 3.5 cents per kwh.

He would have voted, however, for the proposal to implement a fuel surcharge of 3.5 cents per kwh for government and 1.5 cents for commercial and residential consumers.

“We have to do it gradually. We have to allow the people to adjust to 1.5 cents and slowly increase it if that’s needed. Besides, it’s not the public’s fault that we now need to charge 3.5 cents or more. CUC was supposed to implement the fuel surcharge years ago. Just because CUC waited doesn’t mean we can now penalize the public and slap them with 3.5 cents,” Sablan said.

On Nov. 26, the CUC board approved a fuel surcharge regulation that would increase the government rate from 16 cents per kwh to 19.5 kwh, the commercial rate from 16 cents per kwh to 17.5 cents per kwh, and the residential rate from 11 cents per kwh to 12.5 cents per kwh, starting December 2004.

The Attorney General’s Office however intervened, saying that the approved regulation was unlawful because it was too different from the proposed regulation earlier presented to the public and because it discriminated against one class of customers, among other reasons.

Left with no choice but to reconsider the proposal, the CUC board made another vote on Nov. 30. The original plan to implement an across-the-board fuel surcharge of 3.5-cents per kwh failed to receive enough votes.

Those who voted in favor of the proposal were CUC chair Francisco Q. Guerrero, Rufina Miles, and Allen Perez. Voting against the plan were Joe Torres, Velma Ann Palacios, and Martin Mendiola.