City gov’t, Beneco to sign deal over Asin hydro tiff

By Isagani S. Liporada

BAGUIO CITY – All that remains is the inking of the pact.

The score on the paperless Baguio-Benguet Electric Coop.-Baguio government deal is set to be ironed out soon with Beneco tasked to draft a formal agreement to end nearly two years of dispute on how much one owes the other.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan bared this saying the parties’ joint technical team came up with a formula to compute power purchased by Beneco vis-à-vis the city-led operations of the Asin Mini-hydroelectric Plants after a meeting last week.

The mayor earlier criticized the deduction of 18-percent “systems loss” in the payment of purchased power by Beneco to the local government.

He said some adjustments could be made in the billing computations to squeeze out a bit more doe from the 86-year old AMP. “During the November 29 meeting, Beneco general manager Gerardo Versoza accepted reduction of systems loss from 18.5-percent to 8.5-percent.”

The reduction, the mayor said, translates into P8.5-million in payables arising from the baseless over-deduction of 18.5-percent systems loss discounted from the amount Beneco was supposed to pay the city had the same been pegged to 8.5-percent.

The P8.5-million shall be paid within a period of 27-months – the same length of time Beneco used the 18.5-percent systems loss as a way of discounting its payables to the city.

“I don’t understand why Beneco even deducts as much as 18-percent [which could translate to bigger income for the city] when it is merely a buyer of the power we produce,” he said.

Beneco and the city government, without written agreement, consented to an electric power exchange rate using National Power Corporation standard power tariff at P4.80 per KWH sometime in 2007.

“But records show us otherwise,” Domogan claimed adding, “I don’t see Beneco using NPC rates as basis of their computations.”

Meanwhile, Domogan said Beneco was pushing provisions in bidding conditions for privatization of the hydros. “Beneco wrote the council saying they were allegedly discriminated upon with the condition that only cooperatives registered under the Cooperative Development Authority can join the bid.”

“I explained however that, while they may be disqualified from bidding not being CDA-registered, they may bid as a National Irrigation Administration (NIA) – registered cooperative.”

Domogan ordered the city engineering unit to audit and recompute the basis for Beneco’s purchase of power from the AMP which may yet again translate to cash for the coffers of Baguio.