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FTC Chairman Tammy Bryan Moves Out of the Way

The following has been circulating on social media for a few weeks. It seems relevant with the press announcement Chairman of the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) Tammy Bryan has recused herself from taking further part in the Barbados Light & Power (BL&P) rate process – Blogmaster   As a child I liked to play those…

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The following has been circulating on social media for a few weeks. It seems relevant with the press announcement Chairman of the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) Tammy Bryan has recused herself from taking further part in the Barbados Light & Power (BL&P) rate process – Blogmaster

 

As a child I liked to play those little games found in magazines called “connect the dots” and “follow the trail”. While following the trail sometimes led to a dead-end, connecting the dots often created an image one would not ordinarily see with the naked eye. Although things like magazines are passe and the world wide web is now en vogue I have kept up with my childhood passion of connecting dots and following trails. 

 

 

One day whilst doodling around on a local online newspaper the recent Barbados Light & Power application for a rate hike caught my eye, especially the various actors involved and once again my childhood passion kicked in and I started connecting dots and following trails. 

 

 

I kept hearing the name Barbados Light & Power and some name Emera used in the same breath. I wondered what it was and started my trail at the Corporate Affairs website. I discovered an Emera Inc on the external company register as being domiciled and registered in Halifax, Cananda and its mailing address locally was “suite 205-207, Dowell House, Roebuck & Palmetto Streets, Bridgetown, Barbados”. 

 

 

Of course, I googled that address where a whole set of hits came up which all identified a law firm called George Walton Payne & Co. as being located at that address. I may be wrong but Emera is probably a client of that law firm. My childhood inquisitiveness continued and of course I wanted to know who were the people in this law firm and I quickly checked the Barbados Bar Association website and names like an Andrew Vanroy Thornhill, Q.C, a Tammy Lavone Bryan and a Mr. George Walton Payne, Q.C, all came up.

 

 

That last name triggered something in my head and then I remembered why the name of that law firm sounded familiar. If I not mistaken is that not the law firm where the Attorney General Mr. Dale D. Marshall, Q.C was a managing partner? He supposed to have some flagship piece of law called Integrity in Public Life that he can’t seem to breathe life into. I didn’t see his name on the Bar Association website but I sure he still got friends in there.   

 

 

That trail led to a dead end, but still not satisfied I went back to the Corporate Affairs website and typed in Emera in various forms only to discover that there are two Emera (Caribbean) Incorporated, one listed on the Amalgamation (Domestic) Register as company 40270 and the other on the Domestic Register as company 14327. There is yet another, Emera Caribbean Holdings Limited on the International Business Company as company number 40616. All of that was gobbledy-gook to me except that one name kept cropping up. That of Andrew V. Thornhill, and I wondered if this person could possibly be Andrew Vanroy Thornhill, Q.C? I must admit that I cheated on this one and got some help from a little birdy who had access to the people database but it confirmed that they are the same person. Not only is he a partner in that fancy law firm but he is a managing partner if you please. Apparently it was he who managed that big fish of Emera buying the shares of the BL&P! Now I understand why people call the two names together. Emera owns Light & Power. My little exercise didn’t lead me anywhere though. I heard it isn’t unusual for lawyers to sit on the boards of their client companies who they represent legally. I had run into a dead-end again so I started on a new track.

 

 

I started at the website of the Fair Trading Commission because it is that government entity who is to determine the principles, rates and standards of service for places like Light & Power. Their values are supposed to include acting with integrity, fostering the respect and trust of staff and the public, and demonstrating impartiality. This FTC place is headed by a board of Commissioners under the chairmanship of a Mrs. Tammy Bryan. Something there again rang a bell, that name sounded awfully familiar. Is this Mrs. Tammy Bryan, Chairman of the FTC and the Tammy Lavone Bryan of George Walton Payne & Co. the legal firm that represents Emera one and the same person? Again, I had to cheat on this one and look at the back of the book for the answers, and again my suspicions were confirmed. Not only is she a partner together with Andrew Vanroy Thornhill Q.C, one of the Emera Directors, but is junior to him. The people work in the same place with their offices separated by a veneer thin piece of Chinese see-though paper for a wall! They probably borrow pens, papers, chit-chat about how wifey, hubby or the children doing and bounce things off each other. 

 

 

I don’t know, but would a managing partner not be senior to an ordinary partner and have a certain level of influence on them? Don’t Chairman of anything still have a certain level of influence on the other members? I know sometimes they have a deciding vote on things. 

 

 

I’m ignorant to how these things work, but I began to wonder if the law firm George Walton Payne & Co. was working for its client Emera in advising on the current application before the FTC panel for an order for a confidentiality hearing and for rate increases backdate to November last year. If this is so, would the law firm of George Walton Payne & Co. not stand to make a profit in some form or fashion from that application of its client Emera to the FTC under the chairmanship of one of its partners? This picture looking really ugly though.

 

 

Again I am ignorant to these things but does a partner in a law firm not equate to that of a director in a company even if by another name? Does a partner in a law firm not have a duty to the firm and to look out for its best interest? I would have to consult with a lawyer on that one but it makes me wonder who the missy that is Partner/Chairman/Commissioner batting for.

 

 

 

I also wonder about the FTC Commissioners, are they not “Directors” of that entity as well, even if by another name and owe a duty to that entity and as their value statement” said to act with integrity and demonstrate impartiality? I remembered years ago in a business law class somewhere that directors have a duty not to make a secret profit. I also remembered in that same class some talk about disclosure, conflict of interest and the whole nine yards. 

 

 

I must admit though that I’ve never had these two games combined into one, where following a track connected dots along the way.In the end, I seem to be no wiser in my little online follow the track and connect the dots game for what I’ve ended up with looks more like one of those things oletime things called a cesspit. It used to have in a lot of nasty worms and creepers and it looked like it was living. God forbid if you ever disturbed it and it belched. The whole place was stink for miles around.

 

 

 

I must see if any of the intervenors at the FTC, BL&P rate hearing can help me to identify what I just ended up with. In the meantime I moving on to the next game called follow the trail and find Ian Carrington.

80 responses to “FTC Chairman Tammy Bryan Moves Out of the Way”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    We are on the same page.

    The reason the article was posted highlighting concern about oil agreements in Guyana is that governance issues are always a challenge this part of the world where governments is concerned.

  2. Critical Analyzer Avatar
    Critical Analyzer

    @David

  3. David Avatar
    David

    @CA

    If you search BU Archives you should be able to retrieve discussions past around Economic Hitman.

  4. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    That is why I hesitated to put those solar panels on my roof. I could not figure out how the electric company was going to make its money. I thought I was missing something.

    Anyway, I probably will put the few solar panels on my roof anyway. With such a small “investment” I will probably not lose out.

    Hopefully the flaws in reasoning will be sorted out and a new plan will be made.

  5. Critical Analyzer Avatar
    Critical Analyzer

    @Donna
    The electric company will always come out ahead between the EV car push, overall energy feed-in limits and renewable rates paid.

    Once they reach the feed-in subscriber limit, they will stop paying new customers for net excess energy as already happens in some countries.

    The BL&P should have been first split in two, a power distribution company and a power generation company by the government before this renewable energy policy push. The distribution company purchases power from various PV, Wind and Fuel generators at the same fixed rates, sells to customers and maintains distribution infrastructure.

  6. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    C.A,

    I will read again when my brain is not tired. Maybe you have filled in what I thought was missing.

  7. David Avatar
    David

    https://barbadosunderground.files.wordpress.com/2022/05/11d658c8-5c79-47a4-81a7-c10bbf7942ed-13973-000002cf690899a4_file.jpg

  8. David Avatar
    David

    https://barbadosunderground.files.wordpress.com/2022/05/08d5ce7c-d3b3-4eb0-b423-858444690a48-13973-000002cff131854b_file.jpg

  9. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    This is not that difficult to understand….
    Think of a toy train with bells and whistles and the capacity to make steam. Think of the BU crowd full of hot air.

    Come back later and hope see that the toy passenger train is still working. Hot air still blowing.

    Oh heck.. I just had an idea… What about windmills.. with our supply of hot air ….

    NTSH

    I could have just said “Unable to contribute”

  10. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    Come back later and see that the toy passenger train is still working. Hot air is still blowing.

  11. David Avatar
    David

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CeM9rMotMyq/

  12. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    What happened to the last Director David?
    Has she gone to work for Emera too?

  13. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    Maybe she recused herself permanently.

  14. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    LOL @ David
    A little bird just suggested to the bushman that perhaps she may have been ‘reclused’ because she refused to ‘go with Emera’…

    Of course, in a NORMAL country something like this would be transparent, since this person is meant to be a DEFENDER OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST.

    So how does she just disappear just like that…?
    How do we know that she wasn’t standing on principle…and lost?
    You done know that Bushie gotta suspicious mind too….

    But what would this shiite place do without BU though…?

  15. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    Didn’t Ronald Toppin jump ship all those years ago and to this day not an explanation given to taxpayers?

  16. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    True
    Business as usual…..

  17. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    Admit it, which modern day politician and leadership elsewhere have the balls to swim against the tide? We are a people quickly turned off by big bang interventions. The blogmaster has tested it many times in this space. We are disinterested about the issues that really matter read governance unless it is tinged with salaciousness.

  18. David Avatar
    David

    FTC Barbados take note.

    FTC’s Antitrust Probe of Amazon Picks Up Speed Under New Boss

  19. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    Admit it, which modern day politician and leadership elsewhere have the balls to swim against the tide?
    ~~~~~~~~~
    Agreed!
    Actually most don’t even come with the FACILITY for balls…
    Far less to be swimming Upstream…

    All kinds of ‘radical’ shiite can get by us, as a result.

  20. David Avatar
    David

    New regulatory compact needed

    DISRUPTIVE ELEMENTS are creating unprecedented changes in the electric industry. Expansion of distributed energy resources (DERs), demands for decarbonisation, the need for greater grid resiliency and reliability, and the advent of digitalisation are major drivers of these changes.
    Locally, Barbados Light & Power (BL& P) is responding to these developments with programmes aimed at grid modernisation and a clean-energy transition. Policymakers, on the other hand, are planning a major market restructuring that will split the vertically integrated industry into five new market segments. These include generation, energy storage, wires, grid management and sales.
    While these stakeholders’ actions are all timely and necessary, they do not go far enough. One central component that is missing from their broader plans is the reform of the current utility business and regulatory model.
    A business model is essentially a revenue logic that delivers value to customers, encourages customers to pay for that value, and converts payments into profits. Utility tariffs and business models are mutually interdependent. The monopoly model of our power grid has been eroded by DERs and yet the cost structure and regulatory principles that underpin it still remain. No doubt, this situation will limit its ability to serve the needs, expectations and aligned interests of the utility and its customers alike.
    The current model is a cost-based and backwards-looking approach that focuses on pricing inputs rather than outputs. It incentivises capital expenditure (CAPEX) and throughput of energy rather than conservation and energy efficiency.
    These attributes, unfortunately, give rise to features of regulatory lag and information asymmetry that present difficulties for regulatory prudence and timely cost-recovery – difficulties that are exacerbated in the present environment of capitalexpansion and declining load-growth.
    The task of maintaining financial viability under these circumstances will be a significant challenge for BL& P, especially as it embarks on its clean-energy
    transition. It will require a new regulatory compact, one that departs significantly from the costplus mechanisms of cost-trackers that the utility currently favours.
    These tariffs, an addition to the 11.9 per cent requested rate increase, are designed to effect the timely recovery of the revenue-requirement deficit brought about by the cleanenergy expansion programme.
    However, while these mechanisms may be initially beneficial to the utility, they will place a significant and unbearable financial burden on ratepayers and ultimately create sustainability issues going forward.
    The financial climate does not portend favourably for utility or stakeholders and this may affect pending capital investment. This will ultimately drive the need for a different regulatory approach. In recent times, utilities facing similar circumstances have been turning to performance-based regulation (or PBR) coupled to multi-year plans as an alternative to cost-of-service regulation.
    Much of the excitement for implementing this new business and regulatory model comes from the experience and successes of the United Kingdom. Regulators there introduced this framework, which incentivises the utility to adopt a different approach to earning revenue, one that is tied to the achievement of performance metrics, delivery of outputs and innovation, and which decouples revenues from CAPEX.
    This is the direction that many regulators and utilities are heading in today as a result of flatter demand, stricter emission regulations, and greater cost competition from DERs. The island grids of Jamaica and Hawaii have already made the regulatory transformation with some success, and it is time that we follow suit.

    – TONY “KITE” GIBBS

    Source: Nation

  21. David Avatar
    David

    FTC step in right direction

    The news that the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) is looking again at the compensatory aspects of utility regulation is a reminder of the value of the service to the public, which is rendered by these companies which use their private capital and devote it to the wider purpose.
    Such services are always useful to the public and the economy. As such, the older commentators used to speak of the private property used and useful in the public service.
    They drew the distinction between “used”, on the one hand, and “useful”, on the other hand, to justify utility companies keeping a reasonable quantity of spare parts or other standby equipment to be pressed into service in the case of breakdown of critical equipment.
    Reliability and quality of service are therefore inevitable standards to be met by properly operating utility companies. In return for these almost monopoly companies in most cases, if not outright monopolies themselves, the companies are permitted the chance to charge rates that will allow them to make a reasonable profit and not gouge the public who cannot do without such services.
    Hence we are happy to note that the FTC, in addition to laying down the relevant established indicators of quality and reliability of service, is prepared to add teeth to the regulations by ordering compensation for relevant breaches of standards.
    It is also prepared to deal with the matter of reconnection of service in a timely manner once that service, for one reason or another, has been severed. It is a step in the right direction to keep utility companies on their toes.
    Unfortunately, hedging arrangements proposed by the Barbados Light
    & Power (BL& P) did not come to fruition.
    We accept that hedging is not a simple matter and that the FTC had a responsibility not only to examine the broad parameters of the application but also to examine the equitable nature of the scheme given that BL& P is a regulated entity.
    It was wise for the company to seek hedging so as to lock itself into a fixed forward price in a volatile market in which oil and fuel prices appeared headed for the roof.
    It would have enured to public benefit if a locked in lower price had been secured. For fossil-based fuel has now become a seller’s market with the advent of war in Ukraine.
    As it is, the public outcry at the passthrough price of fuel under the fuel clause aspect of monthly power bills, though noticeable and perhaps justifiable, is due in very large part to the external events for which neither the supplier of power nor the consumers of power are blameworthy.
    What can be locally controlled is the efficiency of the local operations not only at the operational level but also in reconnecting interrupted services however caused within the shortest possible time frame.
    It is for these reasons that we draw public attention to the need for reasonable, but cogent critical analysis, by objectors and intervenors of the current application for a rate increase by the BL& P.
    Given current conditions, the BL& P has a heavy public duty to show that it is operating as efficiently and as economically possible and holding rates to a minimum necessary to deliver proper service.

    Source: Nation (Editorial)

  22. David Avatar
    David

    Tough task ahead for FTC, says energy expert
    The Fair Trading Commission (FTC) panel hearing an application for higher electricity rates will face a difficult task trying to balance the Barbados Light & Power Company Limited’s (BL& P) financial requirements with fairness for consumers.
    That is the view of Bruce Chapman, vice-president of United States company Christensen Associates Energy Consulting.
    Chapman, who participated in BL& P’s 2009 rate application assisting in preparing the cost of service study and the rate design among other tasks, was speaking Wednesday evening during a BL& P online briefing on the electricity ratemaking process. “Rate design is all about a bunch of things that can’t all be satisfied and you will see that in regulatory proceedings. I think the important thing here is what rate design faces, and the two keywords are balancing objectives, and the main thing, there are many conflicting objectives in rate-making,” he said.
    He added that utility companies needed to fully recover their costs, including the return on investment, or they could face bankruptcy.
    “If you don’t recover return on investment the utility can’t borrow. You have to be fair in allocating costs across classes. Everybody has to have a perception that they are not being stiffed,” he explained.
    “You need to keep rate structure simple. You can have a more complicated rate structure but there better be benefits for complicating rates. You
    want to avoid cross subsidy – we don’t want the residential customers paying the business class expenses.”
    Chapman added: “We would like it to be the case that customers are being treated fairly, and additionally we would like to protect customers with each new rate application. It’s not going to seem fair to customers if the utility submits a rate increase of, say, seven per cent or something like that, but some customers in that rate application have rate increases of 50 per cent.
    “That’s going to produce real pain for those customers and maybe a blowback both for the utility and for the regulator. The customers are going to say, ‘How could you allow this?’.”
    Kim Griffith-Tang How, director of customer solutions and regulatory lead for BL& P, told the session that the rate-making process was a combination of science, art and common sense with the objective of fairness for the utility and customers.
    “In other words, it’s not one or the other and so at the end of the day, the regulator really having had all of the information available to them and looking at other factors as well that may socially drive their decision, they at the end of the day will have to make that decision,” she said.
    “But it really comes down to a balance, what customers can bear, but really what the utility needs to survive and serve those very customers. I think that’s really what it comes down to.” (SC)


    Source: Nation

  23. David Avatar
    David

    BLPC confidentiality hearing delayed

    Article by Emmanuel Joseph
    Published on
    June 14, 2022

    https://barbadostoday.bb/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/20220530_-Marsha-Atherley-Ikechi-1-730×456.jpg

    The confidentiality hearing on an application from the Barbados Light and Power Company (BLPC) to keep certain information from the public has been suspended.

    The matter, which was scheduled to be heard last Wednesday by the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) leading up to the hearing for an interim rate increase, has now been placed on hold for possibly another two weeks.

    “The confidentiality hearing was suspended due to an objection from an intervenor, and we are in the process of dealing with that matter before we can proceed,” Chief Executive Officer of the FTC Marsha Atherley-Ikechi revealed to Barbados TODAY on Monday. “It has been adjourned until we get back to that, which should be, I would say, before month-end,” she added.

    During an interview last Tuesday, the FTC’s chief executive said that the commission had initiated the confidentiality hearing about two or three weeks before, but it had to be postponed because of an “intervening matter”.

    “That matter was considered and now we are moving ahead with the confidentiality hearing for the general rate application,” she explained last week.

    In its application, the BLPC is asking the FTC to exclude certain “confidential” information from being made known to the public during the rate hearing.

    Meanwhile, the date for the main rate hearing is still known. Confirmation of a date will depend on separate decisions on the confidentiality and interim rate increase applications. Back in April, the FTC said it had approved eight intervenors who will be challenging the BLPC’s proposed basic rate increase. It said then that the hearings would start mid-May.

    In its application filed in September 2021, the electricity company told the FTC it was critical for the viability of BLP that interim rate relief at the proposed rates be allowed by November 1, 2021, until a final decision was made on the main request. The country’s sole power company has contended that it would be unable to fund its planned investments to meet customer needs if it does not get the interim hike.

    The company is seeking increases ranging from $2 to $6 more per month for domestic customers and between $4 and $10 more for general service users.

    If the increases are approved, the energy bill for large power customers would move from $1,287.00 per month for each service to $1,587 per month and secondary voltage customers’ rate would move from $149 to $169 per month.
    emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb

  24. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ David, you said on May 31…
    “The blogmaster has tested it many times in this space. We are disinterested about the issues that really matter read governance unless it is tinged with salaciousness.”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Boss!! ….Do you STILL not grasp the concept of brass bowls?
    These are empty vessels , very similar to ‘topsies’ or ‘poes’, that are most famed for making lots of ‘noise’ – but mostly shiite noise such as is associated with crap-over.
    They ARE attracted to ‘salaciousness’ indeed, …like gossip, pulling other BBs down, and generally to things that smell.

    Brass Bowls have NO interest in issues that abuse or debase them. Their mindsets are such that this is ‘par for the course’, and that it represents what they deserve. We are much too busy worrying about if ‘bumper-jamming’ will be allowed next month at crap-over by the Covid police, to waste time on checking into who is robbing us.

    So EXACTLY what kind of inputs are you expecting from this revelation above, that some shiite FISHY is going on with this EMERA situation? …and with this ploy to squeeze another $50 million dollars or so per year out of the brass bowls?
    …. to line Canadian pockets such as Hants’ and Northern’s.

    The only comments that Bushie expect are another video from Hants featuring one of his women; a brief comment from NO about the great investment he has in EMERA; and a joke from Lawson about how easy it is to take candy from Brass Bowls,,,

    Now if you had posted an article about a new song by Popsicle…..

  25. David Avatar
    David

    @Bush Tea

    It is interesting the FTC announced the meeting before canvassing intervenors to preempt any embarrassing clawback? Maybe the blogmaster is ignorant about standard procedure in these matters.

    On your other point: our educated people complain and moan about high prices and related BUT are reluctant to get involved in the process by educating themselves, immersing themselves in the process etc that ultimately will determine outcomes for them read end consumer.

  26. Bush Tea Avatar
    Bush Tea

    @ David
    Your last paragraph is an oxymoron.
    …unless of course you substitute ‘educated people’ with ‘brass bowls’… or at least put it in inverted commas.

    IF we had truly educated people available, then we would be WELL on top of situations such as this colossal joke being paraded as a rate case.
    Do you see now why Bushie is forced to persist with the brass bowl talk…?

  27. David Avatar
    David

    BL&P gearing up for August face-off

    Intervenors out to stop company from getting rate hike
    By Shawn Cumberbatch
    shawncumberbatch@
    nationnews.com
    Barbados Light & Power Company Limited (BL& P) is about to face off against intervenors intent on stopping its quest for an electricity rate increase.
    The Fair Trading Commission (FTC), which is currently adjudicating an application for an interim tariff hike, has set August 25 as the start date of the public hearing for the substantive application.
    That date is more than ten months after BL& P applied for the rate increase, with sources involved in the process saying the hearing is scheduled to run for 12 business days.
    While BL& P continues to defend the application for its first rate hike since 2010, a group of eight FTC-approved intervenors is pushing back against the effort, including the interim rate.
    As proposed in the BL& P application, Barbadian households would pay increases ranging from 33 per cent to 43 per cent, in addition to a base energy charge increase of between 12 per cent and 25 per cent. This equates to a $46.5 million increase in revenue for the company.
    Customers’ needs
    BL& P says if it does not seek a rate adjustment at this time, it would be “without the financial resources to continue to adequately maintain its plant equipment and continue to invest in initiatives to meet customers’ needs; be unable to align with Government’s goal of 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030; [and] eventually, we will be unable to borrow money to fund its projects and operations under reasonable conditions”.
    “To achieve 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030 Light & Power, like many other investors, will need to make significant capital investments. In order to execute its capital investment plans, Light & Power, like other investors, will be required to borrow the funds needed to invest in costly, long-lived assets,” it said in its most recent statement explaining the need for a rate increase.
    “Without an increase in rates, Light & Power would be unable to fund planned investments to meet customer requirements; facilitate other players and new entrants in the electricity sector; and generally meet the BNEP objectives and other regulatory requirements.”
    August hearings
    However, intervenors are gearing up to oppose the increase when the public hearings begin next month.
    Those opposing the rate application are the Barbados Renewable Energy Association; Government’s Energy and Small Business and Entrepreneurship Divisions, Ministry of Energy and Business Development; Dr Roland Clarke; Ricky Went; The Barbados Sustainable Energy Cooperative Society Ltd; Tricia Watson; and the Barbados Association of Retired Persons.
    Intervenor representatives said the group had all filed several affidavits, interrogatories and letters with the FTC, most of which focus on the commercial aspects related to the BL& P application, while others raised legal and regulatory concerns.
    An official explained that the process had taken some time to get to a public hearing date because of several necessary steps, including a decision on depreciation, which had an impact on the revenue requirements, and the June 29 confidentially hearing to determine whether the company’s five-year system expansion plans, fiveyear investment plans and new licences should be made public or be only available to the FTC and/or intervenors.
    75-page affidavit Following its original 1 300-page application, BL& P filed another 75-page affidavit to further support its claim. In that document, BL& P, in making reference to its 2021 non-consolidated financial statements, contended among other things that “there was a significant deterioration in the earnings and cash flow of the company” as it showed a net profit of $24.6 million in 2021 compared to $28.7 million in 2020.
    In their written responses to the FTC, the intervenors observed that the company paid $25 million in dividends in 2021. Went argued in sworn affidavits to the FTC that while BL& P did not pay any dividends when its net profit was $28.7 million, “it paid $55 million in dividends in 2019 (net profit of $53.4 million) or 458 per cent more than the $12 million it paid out in 2018 (net profit of $69.4 million).
    Apart from its dividend policy, Went pointed out that all of the company’s revenue categories increased in 2021 apart from street lights, which declined from $4.8 million to $4.5 million.
    Regarding the company’s operating costs, he also noted that after the unprecedented events of 2020, not only were BL& P expenses in 2021 almost $7 million more than 2020, but they exceeded the incremental revenue of $3.6 million.
    Went said that BL& P should not be granted an interim rate increase, adding that it would be a major burden for consumers already paying higher electricity bills.

    Source: Nation

  28. David Avatar
    David

    From my (Tracia Watson) FB post today:

    Dear Bajans

    You’ve probably read the Sunday Sun article about the electricity rate review case by now. I am the Tricia Watson named in the article as an intervenor.

    I am here again to tell you some truths:

    1. The Barbados Light and Power, the island’s monopoly electricity utility, is asking the FTC to give it an immediate retroactive rate increase because according to them, they are ‘in dire straits’.

    2. In 2022 (that’s right, just a few months ago) knowing that they are ‘in dire straits’ (because that’s what they said when they filed their application in September 2021 and that’s what they are still saying to the FTC and to Barbadians), that same Barbados Light and Power DECLARED AND PAID OUT DIVIDENDS TO ITS SHAREHOLDERS OF $25 MILLION – that is more than their net income according to their own financial statements.

    3. That same BL&P is telling the FTC that Bajans must pay higher rates RIGHT NOW, even before they provide full information to intervenors, and before a thorough public rate hearing is held, and before they justify a rate increase.

    4. That same Barbados Light and Power still hasn’t said what it did with the hundreds of millions of dollars that it earned on the promise of buying new generation equipment THAT IT NEVER BOUGHT, a decision that is costing Barbados’ electricity consumers today in unbearable fuel clause adjustment charges.

    That decision not to replace old obsolete inefficient generation plant with new high efficiency generation plant, was deemed to be “reasonable” by the FTC in a decision published on March 25 2022. BL&P’s decision is currently costing us the rate payers millions of dollars in fuel clause adjustment charges, and has cost us hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel clause adjustment charges over the last 12 years.

    Since the FTC’s decision was published, the BL&P is repeatedly using the FTC’s statement to try to excuse not buying that new generation plant as it said it would in the 2009 rate case. By the way, the BL&P is now asking for $130+ Million for new high efficiency generation plant of the same kind as the plant they said in 2009 they would buy. Today, instead of just referring to the plant as the medium speed diesels as they did in 2009, they are calling it “The Clean Energy Bridge”. A rose by any other name.

    5. I am working hard to make sure that Barbados’ consumers are properly represented in this application. And I will continue to inform and educate you during this rate case.

    6. I will not give you the platitude “Rest assured”. This is serious business.

    Stay vigilant. Share.

  29. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    The Barbados Light & Power Company Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Emera Caribbean and currently the sole electricity utility provider in the country of Barbados.

    Emera Caribbean

  30. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    https://barbadostoday.bb/2022/10/21/ftc-process-continue/

    Let me assure that the length of time a process takes to complete is no indication of the thoroughness of the process. Without suitable metrics we cannot reasonably say the process took too long or was too short or was thorough?

    This has been a long time to complete this task and we can attribute some of this to fear of Covid-19, but were there unnecessary delays or gaps that could have moved this process forward more quickly? We have not looked at that data.

    I wish to add that given the temporary increase and the constant positive comments of a minister on the the behavior of the BL&P, the public is aware that an increase will be granted. I expect that it will be in the vicinity of a 9% increase.

    When it happens, please be aware it was not because I had inside knowledge or a package fell of a truck,> t was merely a full understanding of the political posturing and the games people play that gave me full insight into the shenanigans.

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