Battling electricity fee hikes

Customers of the Hiep Phuoc Power Co (HPPC) in HCM City’s Nha Be District have angrily opposed the power supplier’s bid to impose a 240 per cent hike in electricity bill from April 1.

In a meeting with over 60 representatives sof companies in Hiep Phuoc Industrial Park on Wednesday, the HPPC said it wanted to temporarily collect for three months a 12 US cent per kWh surcharge to make up its daily loss of $200,000 due to a hike in oil price.

With the surcharges, the electricity price for HPPC’s customers would increase from 5 to 17 cents per kWh.

The HPPC said the company had incurred accumulative losses of $45.5 million in the past five years due to rising fuel prices while electricity prices were controlled by the Government.

It said at the meeting that clients refusing to pay electricity bills and fuel surcharges would face power cuts.

In response to HPPC’s proposals, most customers said the power price hike proposed by HPPC was “unreasonable” and “illegal.”

Pham Van Dung, general director of Xuan Mai Paper Co, said with the surcharge, his company would have to pay an extra VND650 million per month for electricity bills.

He said Xuan Mai earns after-tax profits of VND100 million ($4,762) per month. If the surcharge was paid, the company would incur monthly losses of VND550 million instead.

William Koury, general director of the Sai Gon Premier Container Terminal (SPCT), said the surchages would make SPCT’s services less competitive compared with other seaports in the country.

“Electricity prices must be assessed by relevant agencies and decided by the Government,” said Le Van Quy, general director of Hoa Sang Engineering JSC.

Quy said the HPPC operated under the Viet Nam Investment Law and therefore could not decide electricity prices by itself or threaten to cut off power supply. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam electricity prices, Vietnam energy