00:00 According to the president of the greater San Fernando business chamber
00:04 Kiran Singh, income levels remain static and the cost of living remains high.
00:11 He tells TV6 there has not even been a definite time frame to prepare for the
00:16 new TNTEC rates. If RIC is correct in saying they can give you 21 days notice to
00:22 increase the electricity rate, that is less than one month time and that is
00:25 certainly not enough time for persons to get their businesses in order to
00:31 readjust the expenses to look at their budgets. A lot of persons who they don't
00:37 get their pay on time. Singh stresses that the cost to business owners is high
00:43 when there are issues with the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity Commission that
00:48 are no fault of businesses. When we have power outages, low voltage, low shedding, your
00:54 appliances, your equipment are damaged, destroyed permanently. Where is the
00:59 rebates, the credit system or some sort of alleviation that can come to the
01:05 business place that they can recover some of expense that was due no fault of
01:09 theirs that they lost capital, they lost infrastructural equipment. He notes that
01:15 the proposed electricity rate increase may appear minimal but that is not the
01:21 true picture. 30% mightn't sound bad because if you pay a thousand dollar
01:26 electricity bill that goes up to $1,300 that sounds fine but you have to add in VAP,
01:29 you have to add in the other fixed costs that TNTEC imposes upon
01:34 their customers and these hidden costs need to be realized. The Chamber
01:39 President is calling for more focus to be placed on solar power now.
01:43 Nicole M Romany, TV6 News
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