The National Power Corporation’s (Napocor) proposed increase in missionary generation charges could further burden consumers with up to P0.1948 per kilowatt hour (kWh) added to monthly electricity bills.
This was the claim of Bayan Muna Party-List Representative Carlos Zarate.
“In concrete terms, these charges for households consuming 200 kwh per month would mean an increase of P38.96 on their Universal Charges-Missionary Electrification (UC-ME), P58.44 for 300 kWh households, and P77.92 for 400 kWh households,” he was quoted in a Manila Bulletin report.
“Also these additional charges would further compound the effect of the TRAIN (Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion) law and would be another burden to our already-suffering consumers,” he added.
Missionary charge is a cost of basic electricity service in unviable areas with the aim of bringing electricity in these areas.
Cost of power generation could be affected due to the 2018 law which increased excise taxes on petroleum.
“What’s worse is that Napocor again applied to the ERC to increase the missionary generation charge in off-grid islands in Luzon by a total of P2.9140/kWh. The application will raise the charge to P8.5544/kWh from P5.6404/kWh,” Zarate said.
Napocor also wanted to pass the excise tax on fuel being used to generate power in off-grid islands.
“This is on top of its previous application for an increase of P0.9492/kWh, bringing the total increase to P2.9140/kWh,” noted the ranking House member.
“These abuses of missionary subsidies are apparently the result of the collective neglect of the DOE (Department of Energy), Napocor, and ERC for allowing anomalous manipulation of the power supply contracting process.
“These are done through unsolicited proposals and Swiss challenge biddings, which award ill-conceived projects to favored suppliers at onerous, apparently even anomalous, terms and conditions,” Zarate explained.
