Bacolod City Administrator Roger Balo yesterday said the city will save about P2.5 million a year if it gets its power for the new government center directly from the National Power Corp.

The savings could even go up to P2.9 million a year considering that the city will no longer have to pay for other charges imposed by the Central Negros Electric Cooperative, Balo said.

CENECO will also lose one of its biggest clients if it will not provide power connection to the new government center since the city’s electric bill is about P1 million a month.

If additional buildings are built at the government center for national agencies who want to transfer there, they will need additional power supply, too, he added.       

Balo said that because of the pronouncement of CENECO that it will not supply power to the new government center, they were able to discover that it would be more advantageous for the city to apply for direct connection with the NAPOCOR.

Balo said he has already received a favorable response from the National Transmission Corp. and NAPOCOR concerning the application of the city for direct power connection.

“We are now planning to apply for a waiver with CENECO for reconnection with NAPOCOR,” he said.

If CENECO will not grant the city a waiver because of the city’s unpaid electric bills with CENECO, it should consider that it also has unpaid franchise taxes to the city, Balo said.

City Legal Officer Allan Zamora, earlier, said that as of May 2006, CENECO had total unpaid taxes to the city amounting to P166,095,619.13, while the city has unpaid electric bills with CENECO amounting to P141,654,059.13 as of December 2007.

Balo said if CENECO does not pay its franchise taxes to the city on time, this will continue to increase because they will continue to incur penalties.

On the other hand, the city continues to pay its current billing to CENECO, he said.

He said the Supreme Court has ruled that any electric cooperative which is not a member of the Cooperative Development Authority (like CENECO) is not exempted from paying franchise taxes.*CGS

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