BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – DESPITE the indication that his government is working to address the electricity bill issue, the picture painted by Prime Minister the Right Honourable Dr. Denzil L. Douglas for residents of St. Kitts is that there would be no immediate relief and outstanding arrears must be paid.
It was only about two weeks ago that Dr. Douglas made a call to persons to participate in the May 7 Labour Day March to encourage the government to find alternative energy sources, thereby reducing the cost of electricity.
The Finance Minister explained last week (May 8) during his radio programme ‘Ask the PM’ that a reduction in the cost of electricity is a work in progress and while an overnight result is not expected, the government has devised a two-pronged approached to tackle it.
The first prong – he elucidated – would focus on arrears owed to the St. Kitts Electricity Company Ltd (SKLEC) and, in this regard, the government is working on a package and “very shortly, I believe, we would be in a position to say something public about the situation”.
As it stands, this provides little or no solace for electricity customers especially since – as Dr. Douglas explained – arrears still must be paid.
“In the meantime the arrears have to be collected because there is a policy in place that the company is utilising…with the full support of the government.”
The second prong of the approach - as outlined by the Finance Minister – would speak to the reduction of electricity costs through the sourcing of alternative energy.
“We want to do that by way of asking for greater conservation of electricity from our consumers. We want to encourage all of our consumers with government incentives to move further and further away from their own dependence on fossil fuel energy and become much more dependent on renewable energy, so that - for example - any energy-saving device or appliance that can be adopted by our households or by our business people, government will encourage this to be so in several different ways.
“And this is going to be important because the solar energy, the geothermal energy, the wind energy investment that will eventually bring down the cost of producing electricity and transmitting it to our consumers, that will take some time.”
“…We also have some outstanding issues with regard to wind energy. We need to speak to the principles that the government has been working on over the last few months and years and bring to conclusion those outstanding issues that will thus give impetus to bring wing energy to the people of St. Kitts and Nevis, which will be a cheaper energy and thus we will see a reduction in the cost of electricity for the consumers when they receive their bills.”
SKLEC was corporatised on August 1, 2011, transitioning from a government-run entity (St. Kitts Electricity Department) to one handling its own affairs and run by a Board. And the current entity’s employees and management have been commended for the “tremendous work that they have done in transitioning the electricity government department into a private company.”
