Despite Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamelco) Board of Directors ignoring the approved extension of its Investment Management Contract (IMC) bidding, Mayor Beng Climaco supported the board’s decision to award the co-op’s pending IMC to lone bidder and San Miguel-led Crown Investment Holdings.
“Subject to laws and on condition that everything was made above board, I support the awarding of IMC to Crown Investment,” Climaco said, stressing that the IMC has taken so long and now is the time that “we implement it to improve Zamcelco’s management and ensure a very stable electricity in Zamboanga City.”
Climaco said that it’s not important if there was only one bidder that participated in the bidding process.
“After all this has been pending for a very long time, thus it must be done the soonest to meet the deadline for IMC to come in,” she said.
Climaco is expecting Zamelco to hold the Annual General Membership Assembly (AGMA) as soon as possible in order to formally inform the co-op’s member-consumers about the awarding of IMC to Crown Investments.
The winning bidder shall make upfront payment of Zamcelco’s liability to the National Electrification Administration (NEA), under the IMC. In addition, they shall also make the payment of past due obligations to current power suppliers, with ERC-approved power supply agreements, and other terms of reference. This will run for 25 years and renewable thereafter.
During the Zamcelco stakeholders meeting last August 10, it was found out that the power co-op’s debt has reached P2.144 billion, while systems loss was at 22.95 percent. This translated to a P 3 million loss for every one percent systems loss. Estimatedly, Zamcelco was found out that Zamelco is losing P 33 million a month.
The IMC that was given to Crown Investments has yet to be submitted for approval of the member-consumers during AGMA and eventually to NEA for final approval before implementing it.
In addition, records showed that Zamelco has 128,299 member-consumers as of July 2018, and a total of 17,759 defective meters or meters that needed to be purchased an/or installed right away.
The IMC has yet to be approved by member-consumers during AGMA and NEA before its implementation.
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