The Anguilla Electricity Company Ltd. (ANGLEC) appears to be ‘financially strapped for cash’. Directors of the Board of ANGLEC announced via a radio broadcast on Klass FM, last Thursday, 25th November, that ANGLEC is having difficulty meeting financial obligations to its creditors.
Paraphrasing comments made by one of the directors, Dr. Wycliffe Fahie, “if all the creditors of ANGLEC were to demand their money at the same time, we would have difficulty with that. You could even say that the company would be insolvent.” In an attempt “to get the situation rectified,” the director said they are looking at options to curtail expenditure given the high cost of fuel.
Chairman, Patrick Mardenborough, indicated that the Board met with the Government of Anguilla to discuss the state of affairs of the company. They had hoped to recover some of the outstanding moneys owed to ANGLEC by government statutory bodies such as the Water Corporation and ASPA. Mr. Mardenborough said: “We need to get an injection of cash from the government side. The statutory bodies are our biggest [financial] burden. We know it is a difficult situation for everybody, but in order to sustain ANGLEC as a company, we need to get some receivables from these large creditors…It is time for some action. We get a lot of pretty words, but no commitment. We don’t see anything happening, and I don’t think the company can run much longer on promises.”
ANGLEC NEEDS “AN INJECTION OF CASH”
He continued: “I really would like to hear that they [statutory bodies] are coming to have their bills straightened up to date. That would be nice, but we know that is not possible. An injection of cash into the company to pay the outstanding bills would be perfect.” Mr. Mardenborough indicated that although the government statutory bodies have not been paying enough on their outstanding arrears to ANGLEC, the company continues to be a revenue source for the government by paying, in full, the government levies, customs fees and duties on fuel.
In the absence of a cash injection from the government, Chairman Mardenborough indicated that ANGLEC “has no choice but to implement some cost-saving measures that will impact the general public, but it is better for us to do it this way than for Delta [Petroleum] to cut us. [Without a supply of fuel], the lights will go out for everybody. We have a proposal to put in motion – a schedule of power outages [load-shedding] in certain areas. We wanted to meet with government as a whole [to discuss this], but that did not happen. [Instead], I spoke with the Minister, and told him that we were going to sensitise the people about the planned outages in an effort to save on fuel consumption.”
SAVING 16,000 GALLONS OF FUEL
Board Director, Maxwell Hodge said that “if we are not getting an injection of cash from the government, which is the largest debtor to ANGLEC, adding a fuel surcharge [of 58%] will only burden us, our people, and our businesses.” He continued: “Yes, rolling outages will impact everybody negatively where they won’t have power for 3 hours in selected areas for that day, starting on Sunday, [28th November].” He explained that the planned power outages would continue for two weeks in the first instance. “We will save on a weekly basis over 16,000 gallons of fuel, and that will help to change the dates for the ANGLEC fuel charges. This delay will better help us to get our financial situation under control,” he said.
A schedule of the planned outages was subsequently posted on ANGLEC’s social media page and shared with the general public on Friday, 26th November. On Saturday, 27th November, a follow-up Press Release from the Office of the Premier, the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communication, Utilities, Housing & Tourism, and the ANGLEC Board of Directors, was also posted on the page. It advised the general public that “load-shedding and power rotations would not commence on Sunday, 28th November, 2021 [as scheduled], and that they were not slated to occur for the foreseeable future.” The directors of the Board of ANGLEC indicated that they would meet with the Government of Anguilla on Monday, 29th November, in an effort to resolve the [financial] issues.
On Monday, 29th November, 2021, the Honourable Premier, Dr. Ellis Webster, and the Minister with responsibility for Utilities, Mr. Haydn Hughes, commented on ANGLEC’s financial situation and its proposed cost-saving measures. During the weekly press conference, Dr. Webster sought to “clear the air on a couple of things,” he said, as he commented on the schedule of planned power outages posted on ANGLEC’s social media page. He said: “This weekend we saw that there was a schedule of load-shedding that was sent out by ANGLEC. It was very unfortunate, and didn’t show good judgment.”
PREMIER: “LOAD-SHEDDING NOT AN OPTION”
He continued: “Some members of the Board, including the Chairman of ANGLEC, went on radio on Thursday and made some statements. We met with them on Friday and were having discussions regarding [ANGLEC’s proposed cost-saving measures]. Load-shedding was not an option to be considered.” The Premier indicated that he was surprised by the schedule of load-shedding because the gist of his conversation with Board members had been “that ANGLEC is a vital asset to Anguilla and to the people of Anguilla. We will do what we have to, to protect and preserve it.” He assured listeners that there would be no load-shedding and stated emphatically: “We will not sanction load-shedding. As you know, the government of Anguilla is responsible for 79% of the shares of ANGLEC…that means that we have some say, and this administration is not in favour of load-shedding.”
MONEY OWED TO ANGLEC
ANGLEC Board of Directors had indicated that some government statutory bodies were the main entities with large outstanding arrears to ANGLEC. Premier Webster addressed this allegation in his comments. He stated: “I want to make it clear that central government does not owe ANGLEC for electricity…When we came into office in 2020, the Water Corporation of Anguilla owed ANGLEC over $12 million…We met it and we are trying to take care of it. Certainly, that is a statutory body that has obligations to take care of its own bills.”
Dr. Webster added that “the government has contingent liability for the statutory bodies, and we have tried to work to make them more accountable to make their payments as needed. Currently, the Ministry of Finance is working on how we can help ANGLEC as they go through this tough time, it seems, in their financial status. We will be meeting with the Board of ANGLEC to get this worked out, but we will not sanction load-shedding. The arrears that we met, and that we are now working to get wiped off, were significant…We are making the necessary arrangements to get these arrears paid.
“This misunderstanding that was put out there by the ANGLEC team, that the government owes ANGLEC – and that this administration, we are rookies and don’t know what we are doing, doesn’t bother me because we are doing the people’s work and we are doing it correctly. We are doing what is right, and we are making the changes that are necessary. Unfortunately, it seems like we wrestle against principalities and powers, and wickedness in high places. We are seeing it manifest daily, but we are doing a good work and we can’t come down.”
THE ANGUILLA ELECTRICITY ACT
Minister Haydn Hughes observed that when they met with the Chairman and other members of the Board of ANGLEC on Friday, “they would have indicated to us that there are a number of private entities that have significant arrears, some in excess of $700,000, so there are not only government statutory bodies that have arrears, but also private entities that have arrears.” He continued: “Also, the concern that we had about load-shedding was that the Anguilla Electricity Act specifically speaks to how that is done, and it states there would be a penalty to ANGLEC for load-shedding. To our mind, that was not the best way to go…There’s been a myriad of concerns that we would have had, and that is why the Premier has led in this to ensure there will be no load-shedding.”
Despite the level of dialogue between the Board of Directors of ANGLEC and members of the Government of Anguilla, it was made obvious on Monday, 29th November, that ANGLEC had followed through with load-shedding. With no further communication to the public, and with no prior warning, at exactly 3:00 pm, there was a power outage affecting the northwest feeder. Many electricity customers were left without power for 3 hours.
The public of Anguilla is hoping that the Government and the ANGLEC Board would find a way to resolve their issues and arrive at a decision that is in the best interest of the people of the island.
