The Bohol Light Company, Inc. (BLCI) has overcharged rates which excess fees should be refunded to its consumers, according to City Councilor Bebiano Inting.
The lawmaker of Tagbilaran City, substantiated his claims against the BLCI “overbilling†while a law grants the electric consumers the right to a refund for overcharging.
The BLCI has collected a metering charge of P0.2075 per kilowatt hour (kwh) which was not included in the unbundling rates as approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) per ERC Case No. 2007-122, Inting claimed.
The councilor, a certified public accountant, also exposed that the BLCI charge for systems loss is “beyond the cap allowed under ERC Resolution No.17, Series of 2008.â€
The BLCI overcharging was uncovered while a number of electric consumers here comp-lained over DYRD’s top-rated program Pulso, which is hosted by uncompromising journalists Batchoy Alba and Ven Arigo, against the unbelievably high recent monthly billings.
One residential power client of BLCI from Lindaville Subdivision aired his complaint over his “usual†electric monthly bill of P500 more or less that has skyrocketed to as much as P9,000.
But an officer of the billing section of the power utility asked all affected consumers to go to their office and show the overcharged billings so that they may be reconciled.
Complaining consumers hit the power distributor for billing them based only on its meter readers’ estimate of the electric consumption for the month of the affected consumers.
There were meter reading periods for billing purposes during which the BLCI men could not enter the residential compounds since the occupants were out.
In such cases, the meter readers would merely estimate the power consumption for the billing month based on the previous or immediate past billing.
Inting will also have this investigated by the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP) committee on public utilities, to which he furnished proofs of his observations.
Inting submitted to the committee excerpts of the ERC Case No. 2007-122 RC decision promulgated on March 27, 2008.
The copies reflect the proposed rates requested by the BLCI to ERC for unbundling of rates and the dispositive portion of the above case showing in detail what the ERC had only approved.
Apart from the P0.2075 metering charge per kwh collected by the BLCI despite its not being included among the ERC-approved rates, the charge imposed by the company for systems loss is over.
Inting said that based on ERC Resolution No. 17, Series of 2008, the systems loss charge by BLCI should only be 9.5% and that it could even be reduced to 8.5% starting January next year pursuant to the same ERC resolution.
The BLCI submitted, however, its computation formula for the systems loss, but Inting told the SP public utilities committee that “it is obvious that it (the BLCI) should not go over or beyond the cap pegged at 9.5%.â€
The councilor attached to his manifestation to the committee, which is chaired by Councilor Nerio Zamora III, his electric consumption for April billing period this year.
He asked the committee to take note of the P0.2075 per kwh collected by the BLCI on metering charge which is not part of the approved charges, and the systems loss charge “which is over the 9.5% cap if we multiply 9.5% from the generation charge plus transmission charge.â€
Inting observed that, surprisingly, the generation charge was suddenly lowered as reflected in the most recent monthly billing.
Granting without admitting that the BLCI did overcharge, this alone that he lately noticed could be likely too telling, the city lawmaker said.
Inting is awaiting any action from the public utilities committee based also on the explanation from the BLCI. (Ven rebo Arigo)
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Topic: Bohol Light Company Overcharging its Consumers? (Read 1354 times)