PHILIPSBURG--The electricity rates charged by utilities company NV GEBE are the “seventeenth cheapest” out of twenty Caribbean islands.
The information was provided by GEBE Temporary Manager Troy Washington during Part I of NV GEBE’s “Candid Conversations” public information series held at University of St. Martin (USM) on Friday last.
He was at the time responding to a question from a member of the audience. “Believe it or not, out of the 20 islands in the region, St. Maarten is the 17th cheapest in the region,” Washington said. Some of the questions posed during the session had to do with billing accuracy as well as electricity costs.
One person asked whether GEBE’s billing is outsourced. Washington clarified that GEBE personnel do the meter reading as well as billing of clients. He said the high costs of electricity bills have to do with the war in Ukraine, which impacted the overall cost of fuel.
He explained also that GEBE conducted an audit of its meters in the field to compare it with the information it had internally. “We did a full field audit on all of our meters. We have all of the readings for all of our meters and we are now mapping them to [check whether – Ed.] there are any discrepancies. Thus far we have not seen any discrepancies,” he said, adding that a number of clients are still to be billed (see related story).
