The National Electrification Administration (NEA) has issued show-cause letters (SCL) against eight electric cooperatives (ECs) to explain an allegedly “highly irregular process” by which their collective purchase of 130 megawatts of electricity have been conducted.
Those issued SCLs included the Ilocos Norte Electric Cooperative Inc.; Ilocos Sur Electric Cooperative Inc.; La Union Electric Cooperative Inc.; Pangasinan I Electric Cooperative; Benguet Electric Cooperative; Kalinga-Apayao Electric Cooperative Inc.; Mountain Province Electric Cooperative Inc; and Sorsogon I Electric Cooperative, Inc.
All were participants of a joint competitive selection process meant to cover their short-term power requirements from 2022 to 2025.
The NEA said the Joint Third Party Bids and Awards Committee had declared two failed biddings on June 14, 2022 and December 9, 2023 as bidders were found short of the requirements set under the terms of reference.
The failure paved the way for direct negotiations which are allowed under the rules of both NEA and the Department of Energy.
However, the NEA said that despite the successive failures of participating bidders to comply with the project’s specifications, the aggregation still limited negotiations with them.
It was also discovered that the aggregation already issued a notice of award despite failing to inform the agency of this development.
Those electric cooperative officers involved ECs must now show cause why they should not be held administratively liable for violating laws, rules and regulations on the proper conduct in the procurement and award of projects.
If grounds are established, the matter will be sent to the proper agencies for investigation.
The NEA also reminded ECs to conduct regular district elections as mandated their suspension is only warranted when “violence, terrorism, loss or destruction of election paraphernalia or records, force majeure and holding a free, honest and orderly election is impossible.”
The agency ordered ECs to submit a specific date and timetable of related board election activities this year.
The NEA supervises all 121 ECs nationwide and regularly monitors distribution system parameters such as systems loss and reliability, circuit kilometers and substation capacity to ensure that these remain operationally reliant and technically efficient in delivering services.
