THE People Oppose to Warrantless Electricity Rates (POWER) warned that it would sue the Board Members of Camarines Sur II Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Casureco II) if they insist on putting the Investment Management Contract (IMC) to work.

POWER has taken to task the coop’s Board for trashing a majority sentiment of member-consumers to junk the IMC during it General Membership Assembly last October 29, 2005.

In a phone interview with the Bicol Mail, Board President Ramon Borja said they are seeing the advantages being promised by the IMC even as he admitted that the coop is now planning to tap the services of the Ateneo de Naga University’s Center for Local Governance to assist them in putting out a massive information dissemination program to explain the positive side of IMC.

On the other hand, former Casureco II Board President and now head of the maverick POWER-Camarines Sur, has laid out the full text of the IMC primer for full understanding and wise judgement by the coop’s member-consumers. Yu and his group have opposed any move to put Casureco II under an IMC saying that at the worst, it would lead to the coop’s selling out to a private company.

POWER disclosed that all member-consumers are made to pay additional P0.24 per kwh over their monthly power bills as reinvestment capital imposed by Casureco II. The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) wants the fund to be deposited in separate account and disbursed only as a capitalization requirement.

With a yearly kwh sales averaging 160,000,000 kwhs, Casureco II gets a handsome P40M every year as reinvestment from the member-consumers, Yu claimed.

Borja said they are firm on entering into an IMC and are ready to confront any opposing view, including threats of court order, regarding the issue.

He said the IMC’s aim is to look at how the operation and financial standing of the power coop be improved.

The IMC promises the board and the management a bailout from the continuing financial downturn being experienced by the cash-strapped Naga-based coop as well as the payment of the coop’s certain financial accountabilities.

Borja said the board is all set for the December 2005 availment of the IMC upon recommendation by the National Electrification Administration.

Yu insisted that if only Casureco II would stick to its yearly non-power cost as indicated in the decision by the Energy Regulatory Commission in Case No. 2001-904 dated July 9, 2003 and its system loss contained at 14% to 15%, the local power coop can expect a yearly net surplus of more than P70M.

The ERC’s prescription on the coop’s annual non-power cost should not go beyond the following schedules: payroll, P55,750.174; operation/maintenance, P42,462,372.00; and reinvestment, P29,666,755.
Yu said Casureco II suffered a net loss in 2004, apparently because of overspending and the failure to improve its operations.

Yu said there is no need for the IMC but the Casureco II must adopt an effective mechanism to reduce power losses by replacing old and substandard cables and materials.

Other measures that the coop should institute he said are as follows:

• The management should instill discipline among all employees who should value hard work, loyalty to service and professionalism;
• Erring workers must immediately be punished and expelled from the service;
• The Board of Directors and the management must never make a decision that would make the rank-and-file suspicious of their sincerity, integrity and honesty.

According to Yu, the IMC is untried and untested, thus it would be a suicidal for the electric coop to adopt it hook, live and sinker.

He suggested that the coop must instead be converted into a stock cooperative using the accumulated but monthly-increasing investment of member-consumers as basis for distribution of stock.

He also strongly suggested that board members must refrain from squandering the coop’s funds through junkets and expensive out-of-office parties and social activities. He said these directors must strictly adhere to the intents of the coop rules and by-laws and the provisions of PD 269, as amended by PD 1645.