Biz Buzz: The fight for NGCP
BIZ BUZZ
If you think the controversy surrounding National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) is over, think again. It seems that the drive to undermine the company’s current owners are continuing full steam, as are efforts to defend the firm from attacks from the most unlikely of parties, if our Biz Buzz sources are correct.
The latest iteration of this long-running fight between NGCP on one side, and the camp of Energy Secretary
Alfonso Cusi and National Transmission Co. president and CEO Melvin Matibag on the other, came to light recently thanks to a press statement put out by party list Rep. Jericho Nograles.
In particular, the lawmaker wants to know why a company with a P7,000 paid-up capital is running the country’s wholesale electricity spot market— a so-called “sweetheart deal” that resulted in more than P100 million in income for it in just a few months.
Thus went his press statement: “Did you know that for every kilowatt-hour that you pay for your electricity, at least 50 centavos are automatically collected by a company with a declared P7,000 capitalization and dubiously set up only in May 2018?”
Nograles, who represents the Puwersa ng Bayaning Atleta (PBA) party list group, questioned how and why the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines Inc. (IEMOP) was able to corner the contract to manage the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) without any competitive selection process.
Even worse, Nograles
IEMOP managed to run its operation with a measly capitalization by taking over hundreds of millions of pesos worth of government-funded IT assets.
“Laway lang ang puhunan,” was how Nograles described
the operation. “Ginigisa ang mga electric users at tayong lahat sa sariling mantika.”
In a briefing for the House Committee on Energy, Nograles questioned IEMOP on its qualifications and required both IEMOP and Philippine Electricity Market Corp. to submit relevant documents to Congress.
“From the documents submitted, it turns out that IEMOP has no experience, and worse, no assets to serve as the the operator of the Wholesale Spot Electricity Market,” he said. “No wonder there was no competitive selection process.”
Nograles even went further to say, “to make the absurd obvious, a capitalization of P7,000 is not even enough to buy a food cart franchise, what more to manage the wholesale electricity spot market?”
To make matters worse, it was also disclosed that IEMOP has as one of its incorporators a certain Ma. Rene Ann Lourdes Garcia-matibag—the wife of National Transmission’s boss Matibag. What?! Is that a potential conflict of interest situation? Abangan! —DAXIM L. LUCAS
‘No deal’
To be sure, the Department of Energy (DOE) on Tuesday said there was no “sweetheart deal” with IEMOP.
In a statement, the DOE said the IEMOP did not go through a competitive selection process as the law required such “only for foreign participants” as an option under the law if the independent market operator was created in 2007.
The IEMOP takeover happened 17 years after the enactment of the law and 12 years after the WESM started commercial operation.
“The DOE opted to create a separate entity composed of Filipinos who have acquired the necessary expertise to operate the WESM and ensure that the market will be managed by Filipinos,” the agency said.
“It is not [a sweetheart deal, and for the engagement of IEMOP] a transition plan was followed in accordance with the law,” the DOE said. “The collection is less than one centavo.”
Also, the DOE denied that IEMOP has no experience in operating the WESM considering that—based on a formal agreement—pemc let go of employees who were then hired by IEMOP.
The question now is whether the fight for National Grid Corporation of the Philippines will settle down after this initial exchange. Somehow we doubt it. The ultimate goal, we hear, is to wrest control of the operator of the country’s power highways from its current owners. Will this prove to be successful? Time will tell. —DAXIM L. LUCAS
Premature warning
culture partment the The jump (DA) Department of in is the Health blaming prices (DOH) of the of Agri- fish De- for in in local farm-gate markets prices and of the variants slump such as tilapia and tawilis from Taal Lake.
Apparently, the DOH had prematurely warned the public not to buy and eat fish from Taal Lake following the disruptive activity of Taal Volcano since Jan. 12. Laboratory tests conducted by the DA and the Bureau of Fish and Aquatic Resources
(BFAR) showed that tilapia and tawilis from Taal Lake were still safe for consumption.
“DA-BFAR conducted laboratory analyses for water and fish samples in Taal Lake and advised that consumption of fish from Taal Lake is safe, provided they are fresh and alive, must be washed thoroughly, with gills and internal organs properly removed, and cooked properly,” the agency said in its latest bulletin.
The militant fishing group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) has also appealed to the DOH to lift its advisory on the consumption of fish coming from Taal to prevent further panic among consumers and stop the unreasonable retail price increase of fish in the market while farm-gate prices continued to decline.
“Farm-gate price of tilapia is now only P30 per kilo,” Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap said, adding that instead of blockading local residents, the government should assist residents in harvesting their fish in the lake.
Based on DA’S daily market monitoring, public markets in Metro Manila have resorted to selling tilapia coming from other provinces such as Pampanga and Bulacan, leaving Taal fisherfolk with an unsteady source of income.