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THE
Joint Congressional Power Commission (JCPC) is bent on
unmasking the individuals who cooked up the National
Power Corp.’s (Napocor) allegedly overpriced purchase of
coal supply for Napocor plants when the bicameral
oversight panel meets on Thursday, Sen. Miriam Santiago
said.
“Yes, of course, we have to find out
[who the culprits are behind this overpriced coal-supply
deal],” Santiago, PowerCom cochairman, confirmed on
Tuesday.
She added that the JCPC is also poised
to review other questionable power deals, including the
controversial bidding for the lucrative 25-year
concession to run the National Transmission Co.
(Transco), which owns the government’s electric grid
monopoly, as well as the concluded sale of prime shares
in the Philippine National Oil Co.-Energy Development
Corp. to the Red Vulcan consortium.
“We
already have the scandal about the sale of the EDC,
which is meant to develop our indigenous energy
resources. We already have the sale of the Transco,
which has been criticized by the opposition; and now, we
have this alleged coal overpricing. So there are three
scandals that are going to be investigated on Thursday,”
Santiago told reporters.
She indicated that the commission is
interested in unmasking the officials who should be held
liable for the coal- overprice deal because this would
“reflect in the Napocor rates” that would eventually be
passed on and borne by overburdened end-users.
“We also
want todetermine if there is criminal liability.”
In a
separate interview, Sen. Miguel Zubiri suggested that
“heads should roll in the Napocor” for allowing the
overpriced-coal deal at the expense of hapless
consumers.
Zubiri,
principal author of the Biofuels Act, has been batting
for the closure of aging coal-fired power plants and
their replacement with renewable alternative-energy
sources.
Earlier, Nacionalista Party Rep.
Teofisto Guingona III of Bukidnon pressed for a thorough
investigation into the activities of what he called the
Napocor “mafia” believed to be derailing the full
implementation of the Electric Power Industry Reform
Act, which mandates early privatization of Napocor
assets to allow open access in the energy market.
In a privileged speech at the House of
Representatives, Guingona bewailed that Napocor
continued to be a “milking cow” of the so-called mafia
at the State-run power agency. |
