Gamboa slams CENECO BOD ‘dishonesty cover-up’

 

Former Councilor Wilson Gamboa, Jr., Amlig Kuryente Convenor, in a statement issued September 30, 2022, accused the Central Negros Electric Cooperative Board of Directors (CENECO BOD) of covering up their gross incompetence, dishonesty and negligence, when they “secretly” engaged a 55-megawatt negotiated contract in the guise of an “Emergency Power Purchase Agreement” (EPPA) with Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (PCPC) at P10.74/KwH.

Gamboa earlier described all CENECO BOD subsequent decisions, actions and all statements rooted in their “original sins” turned “mortal sin” to defraud and emaciate the CENECO Members-Consumers- Owners (MCOs) when they disrupted. intervened in the results of the Competitive Selection process (CSP) winning bid of P3.29/KwH won in the bidding by KEPCO-Salcon Power Corp. (KSPC) last year.

According to him, the CENECO MCOs could have enjoyed such low P3.29/KwH price level situation for the next ten years had it not been for the said CENECO BOD’s gross incompetence, dishonesty and negligence yet so calculating in disrupting the CSP bidding in 2021 resulting to a lost opportunity for the MCOs to avail of a much-much lower fixed price with no consequent accelerating and escalation provisions.

Gamboa reiterates, “It all started and boils down to the wrong personal intentions to defraud the MCOs and what they are doing now to cover up their SINS.”

He said, the first sin was when the CENECO BOD disrupted by intervening in the CSP or bidding and which was the subject of a Department of Energy (DOE) letter dated June 4, 2021 rebuking and reprimanding the CENECO BOD, PS/AGM Danny Pondevilla, stating among others that “the CSP policy does not vest the CENECO BOD much less the PS/AGM, with any authority to postpone the CSP.” Gamboa stresses that said intervention and disruption were clearly a violation and an offense.

He also explained that the second sin came after the refusal of KSPC to honor its bid P3.29/kwh which understandably was no longer viable but the CENECO BOD failed to negotiate with the Unified Leyte Geothermal Energy Inc.- Energy Development Corp. (ULGEI-EDC) which also submitted the second lowest and responsive bid of P3.31/KwH and which at that time had a sufficient available power supply and its basic energy cost is stable since geothermal is not imported, unlike the imported coal and fuel.

The third sin Gamboa explained, is related to the declaration of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) that the anomalous one-year extension contract with KSPC at the amount of P5.42/KwH signed by CENECO President Jojit Yap last May 28, 2021 was illegal and ineligible thereby resulting in the default by KSPC for CENECO’s non-payment of the differential balance of P280 Million as of December 2021, stating among others, that said extension was a “Willful violation, non-compliance to NEA issuances, memoranda, and other rules and regulations.”

He also stressed that the KSPC default or inability to supply and CENECO BOD’s failure to negotiate with ULGEI-EDC exposed CENECO to buy 50 percent of its power supply from the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) whose prices are higher and volatile, affecting thereby their cashflow and liquidity.

Gamboa also said that CENECO’s three original sins rendered it helpless now and therefore eventually committed a “mortal sin” by engaging into a negotiated contract with Palm Concepcion Power Corp. (PCPC) at P10.74/KwH under the guise of an ‘emergency power supply agreement’, with the contract provision of allowing a pass on of actual acceleration and escalation charges of coal, fuel, increasing exchange rates, and other external world factors – to the impoverished MCOs.

He lamented that the CENECO BOD’s “three original sins” turned “mortal sin” will translate into a projected effective rate of about P18.00/KwH by the end of the year, a situation earlier branded as “the federal effects of sin, one sin leading to another sin, until death; falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” – illegal in one thing, illegal in everything.* (PR)