T&TEC confirms existence of “protected list”

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) has con­firmed the ex­is­tence of a “spe­cial pro­tect­ed list” that re­stricts its abil­i­ty to dis­con­nect cer­tain cus­tomers with out­stand­ing elec­tric­i­ty ar­rears, stat­ing that the mat­ter is now un­der le­gal re­view amid pub­lic con­cern over fair­ness and trans­paren­cy.

In a state­ment ad­dress­ing the is­sue, T&TEC said it was pro­vid­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion “in the pub­lic in­ter­est” fol­low­ing scruti­ny of the list, which al­lows se­lect­ed cus­tomers to avoid dis­con­nec­tion un­der stan­dard en­force­ment pro­ce­dures ap­plied to or­di­nary con­sumers.

The util­i­ty con­firmed that the list orig­i­nal­ly cov­ered key pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing gov­ern­ment min­istries and de­part­ments, state en­ter­pris­es, oth­er pub­lic au­thor­i­ties, and for­eign diplo­mat­ic mis­sions. How­ev­er, it not­ed that be­tween 2015 and 2025 the list was ex­pand­ed to in­clude some gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, and pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies.

T&TEC fur­ther stat­ed that there is cur­rent­ly no pub­lished pol­i­cy, for­mal pro­ce­dure, or de­fined cri­te­ria gov­ern­ing the in­clu­sion of in­di­vid­u­als or en­ti­ties on the pro­tect­ed list.

It al­so said there is no doc­u­men­ta­tion or Board min­utes record­ing how cer­tain per­sons and pri­vate com­pa­nies were added.

“The Com­mis­sion has tak­en care­ful note of the strong pub­lic sen­ti­ment ex­pressed about the pro­tect­ed list,” the state­ment said.

The util­i­ty al­so ref­er­enced Sec­tion 5(1) of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Act, Chap­ter 54:70, which em­pow­ers the Pres­i­dent to is­sue gen­er­al pol­i­cy di­rec­tions to the Com­mis­sion on mat­ters af­fect­ing the pub­lic in­ter­est.

Un­der that pro­vi­sion, T&TEC said it has sought le­gal ad­vice and will be guid­ed ac­cord­ing­ly, not­ing that the Pres­i­dent may act on the ad­vice of Cab­i­net in re­la­tion to such di­rec­tives.

The Com­mis­sion em­pha­sised that it re­mains com­mit­ted to equal treat­ment of all cus­tomers and the prin­ci­ples of fair­ness en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“T&TEC wish­es to reaf­firm its com­mit­ment to the right to equal­i­ty of treat­ment guar­an­teed by the Con­sti­tu­tion to all cit­i­zens and gives the as­sur­ance that it val­ues each and every cus­tomer and in­tends to treat them with equal dig­ni­ty and re­spect,” the state­ment added.

The dis­clo­sure has sparked re­newed pub­lic de­bate over gov­er­nance, trans­paren­cy, and the man­age­ment of util­i­ty ar­rears, par­tic­u­lar­ly where state-linked en­ti­ties and high-pro­file in­di­vid­u­als are in­volved.