The Independent Regulatory Commission has announced that the first phase of negotiations for licensing between Dominica’s sole electricity company, DOMLEC and the Independent Regulatory Commission (IRC) has been completed.
However discussion between the two continues.
Speaking at a press conference at its Roseau office Executive Director, Lance Mc Caskey, said that the IRC has just concluded the terms and conditions aspect of the license which have been agreed too with the staff of the Commission.
“The agreed documents will be sent to stakeholders in the electricity sector for their comments. The draft licenses will also be posted on the Commission’s website for those who wish to access them and leave their comments,” he pointed out.
McCaskey said discussions on the new license started with DOMLEC on October 2 on two new licenses for the power company: one for generation and one for transmission, distribution and supply. “Those two new licenses are for the supply of electricity in Dominica beyond the expiry date of their recent license,” he said.
McCaskey also indicated that the IRC has a few “issues” with DOMLEC, namely, confidentiality and transparency. He noted that DOMLEC wanted an integrated license instead of two separate licenses because, according to DOMLEC, it is an ‘integrated company’.
“We also had a problem with confidentiality because the IRC has a mandate to be transparent … the reason for this press conference is transparency … at the time DOMLEC felt that transparency was premature and that we should not put their comments on our website because we had promised to do so…so that the people could have the information,” he claimed.
Public consultations on the draft licenses will be held during the months of January and February 2013 and should be concluded by June, McCaskey said.
it’s important too than domnicans know that the barbadian company is canadian owned
Why dont the OECS governments pool their resources and approach energy supply as one unit?
Every single island is facing this crippling challenge of exorbitant electricity costs sucking out all disposable income from the country and destroying existing investment and potential investment.
No one island is better off at all so no one island can feel superior on this issue. All oecs members are drowning. It’s like Farrakan said, each island trying to survive on its own is just retarded! Although we certainly didnt need Farrakan to tell us that
AFter all, achieving economies of scale is not rocket science!
You-all NEED people with international consultancy experience to guide all you thru. People lke Crispin Gregoire who has worked with and advised governments and business entities from Japan, Africa, South America to the US. It’s a pity these people have been shunned by skeritt and his boys, leaving us in this mess. Dominica’s loss, what a mess.
I couldn’t have said it better… Lack of vision maybe, to put us in this predicament. Government of D’a pays some of highest electricity rates known to man so While they are hurting their priorities are elsewhere, that’s why the more savvy fellas take advantage of the Dominica government ‘asleep at the wheel’. not that uwp would do any better though.lol
is so it is wen ppl vote for the smartest fools
I am a dumbly but even I would recognize something was wrong when DOMLEC demanded an integrated license. That was the voice of the new majority shareholders talking behind the scene. Also the request to castigate transparency was also a tell ate sign. Now only if the IRC was really working for the people someone would have found out what was going on. Instead the IRC is just anther body part of the cow grazed on by cabals of ths nightmare government.
You are right, the I(independent) Regulatory Commission is not independent at all. It reports to the Min. of public Utilities and is funded by central Govt. mr. Eliud Williams is its chairman (unless he has been replaced by someone else, which I’m not aware off)., Eisenhower Douglas, a overnment employee himself is one of the commissioners whilst the CEO worked for Domlec for some fifteen years. They are there to protect the Govt. interest and not the consumers. I have never hear them question the price of diesel Domlec has to pay to Petrocaribe or the exorbitant VAT Govt. levies on our light bills. Domlec has no legal obligation to advise anyone if they want to sell their shareholding and Govt. has had ample time to change that if they were not happy with this.
IRC is supposed to have the inside track on Domlec and yet they had no idea about this? What are you guys doing there with a full-time CEO plus six full time staff? How much is that quasi-govt. body costing us every year? I bet it is no less than 10% of the reported Domlec profit for last year. I have no particular love for Domlec but in my view the IRC are just there to bash Domlec on behalf of Govt. with consumer interests coming a distant second.
Interesting