Gonzales: T&TEC keeps list of high-profile customers

For­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les says the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) main­tains an in­ter­nal list of high-pro­file cus­tomers, in­clud­ing min­is­ters, judges and diplo­mats, to mon­i­tor ac­counts flagged for dis­con­nec­tion or un­usu­al ac­tiv­i­ty.

In a Face­book post on Mon­day, Gon­za­les said the list ex­ists sole­ly to al­low T&TEC to con­tact those cus­tomers if is­sues arise with their ac­counts and does not ex­empt them from pay­ing elec­tric­i­ty bills.

His com­ments came in re­sponse to al­le­ga­tions raised by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment last week con­cern­ing a pur­port­ed “pro­tect­ed list” of cus­tomers linked to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

Gon­za­les said he had re­searched the mat­ter and had been re­li­ably in­formed that the list was an in­ter­nal ad­min­is­tra­tive tool used by the com­mis­sion.

“Those cus­tomers ARE NOT AWARE that their ac­counts are flagged for this pur­pose be­cause it is an in­ter­nal mat­ter with the Com­mis­sion and has no in­ter­ven­tion or con­trol by of­fice hold­ers out­side of the Com­mis­sion,” he wrote.

He main­tained that cus­tomers on the list con­tin­ue to re­ceive bills and re­main sub­ject to T&TEC’s pay­ment re­quire­ments.

Gon­za­les al­so de­nied re­ceiv­ing any spe­cial treat­ment while serv­ing as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter.

“I can per­son­al­ly say for a fact that no one in TTEC in­formed me that my ac­count was flagged in this man­ner and I have con­sis­tent­ly paid my Bills be­fore and af­ter hold­ing min­is­te­r­i­al of­fice,” he wrote.

He chal­lenged Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and T&TEC to prove oth­er­wise and au­tho­rised the re­lease of his T&TEC billing records for the past ten years.

Gon­za­les ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of cre­at­ing the im­pres­sion that in­di­vid­u­als named on the list did not pay their elec­tric­i­ty bills, de­scrib­ing that sug­ges­tion as false.

The is­sue emerged af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­closed in Par­lia­ment that T&TEC main­tained a list con­tain­ing the names of sev­er­al promi­nent in­di­vid­u­als, in­clud­ing for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his wife Sharon Row­ley, and ques­tioned why their ac­counts had been flagged.

Gon­za­les ar­gued that the list in­clud­ed in­di­vid­u­als from var­i­ous back­grounds and af­fil­i­a­tions and said its ex­is­tence should not be in­ter­pret­ed as ev­i­dence that those cus­tomers were ex­empt from pay­ment oblig­a­tions.