Meralco asked to reflect ‘bill deposit plus interests’ in electric bills
By Myrna Velasco – October 26, 2017, 2:02 PM
from Manila Bulletin
Distribution utilities, primarily industry giant Manila Electric Company (Meralco), are being required to reflect on their monthly billing the amounts corresponding to “bill deposit plus interest charges” that they will eventually need to refund to customers.
This has been based on the request of Energy Secretary Alfonso G. Cusi to the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), essentially supporting also the complaint filed by the National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms Inc. (NASECORE) on the matter.
According to Energy Undersecretary Felix William B. Fuentebella, if a major power utility like Meralco is involved, their calculation had been that the ‘principal amount plus interest charges’ could run up to monstrous sum – to the tune of billions of pesos.
“Because of that, the Secretary is asking the ERC to require the DUs to input the bill deposit amount in the consumers’ monthly electric bills. It should also reflect how much interest had already accrued on that bill deposit,” he said.
That way, Fuentebella noted, the customer would be properly apprised of how much pay-back he/she would be getting in the long run.
A bill deposit is collected from residential consumers to serve as ‘guarantee payment of bills’ when they apply for a new or additional service with a DU – whether the private-owned ones or the electric cooperatives.
In its complaint against Meralco, NASECORE stipulated the lack of escrow account that the utility firm was supposed to maintain for its collected bill deposits.
The consumer advocacy group noted that “since the bill deposits serve as mere guarantee in the payment of bills, then it is mandatory for Meralco to have maintained a separate escrow account for this purpose.”
It further stated that the utility firm also “has no authority to use the same for any other purpose.”
NASECORE is basing its ‘no escrow account allegations’ on the audited financial statement of Meralco, stressing that it “is evident that (it) does not have a separate escrow account for the said bill deposits,” qualifying then that such warrants violation.
“The absence of a separate escrow account, as can be gleaned from Meralco’s 2016 audited financial statement, undoubtedly shows that the bill deposits were indeed being utilized by Meralco in its operations, to augment its regulatory asset base and/or working capital which can be both understood as total components of its rate base,” the group said. (MMV)
