Abreco bewails NEA inaction on P20-M loan

By Freddie G. Lazaro

BANGUED, Abra — The National Electrification Administration’s alleged inaction on a P20-million loan for the financially-strapped Abra Electric Cooperative (Abreco) here  has affected the power cooperative’s rehabilitation efforts to stop further losses.

To fully implement rehabilitation efforts for Abreco and provide stable electricity to more than 40,000 Abrenians, the P20-million loan is imperative for the payment of retirement benefits of retrenched Abreco employees, its officers said.

Local power cooperatives, especially those facing financial difficulties, have been expecting much from the NEA with its new charter signed by President Aquino in May 2013. With its new charter, NEA will have better supervision over electric cooperatives, some of which are incurring heavy losses.

However, Abreco general manager Loreto Seares, Jr. bewailed that the loan, being an apparent “non-priority of the NEA up to this time, poses a situation in which “Abreco is left hanging in thin air.”

With the retrenchment scheme as the main feature of Abreco’s rehabilitation plan approved two years ago by the Department of Energy, the National Labor Relations Commission ruled versus such retrenchment. “So we reinstated the retrenched employees and paid their back wages,” Seares Jr. said.