Point of no return

This reaction is, to some extent, unjustified. The rate increase works out to 39 percent added every two months to the bills of residential customers. Thus, if a household’s average electricity bill is $200, they will now be paying $278, which works out to an extra $468 dollars annually. Moreover, since electricity consumption is to some extent discretionary, householders can take steps to reduce their electricity consumption to a level which may result in them paying not much more – they can make sure to turn off lights, use the a/c less, even watch less television. Of course, TTEC must do its part by making sure its bills are based on fresh meter readings, not estimates. In other words, the utility cannot simply add the percentage increase to customers’ previous bills, even if those bills are based on meter readings, since it is likely that people will now change their consumption habits. And, if these people don’t, then that only shows that they are willing to pay the costs for their electricity usage.

But the sting in this tail is not in the residential rate increase, but in the increase for businesses. Business owners have wasted no time in saying that the new rates mean that they will have to increase their prices. In a culture where business persons are largely mistrusted, this will only add to the already high stresses of daily living. But the business owners are themselves between a rock and a hard place. They cannot increase prices beyond the point where customers will be unable to buy whatever they are selling, but they also cannot absorb additional electricity costs beyond a certain point. The balance between those two demands is where a business will falter or continue – and for some, there will be no balance to be found.

As long as people can make adjustments, these additional pressures can be borne, although disaffection with the powers-that-be, in both the public and private sectors, will surely grow. The problem, however, is that citizens now feel that they are reaching a point where no further adjustments can be made, short of turning the clock back to coal-pot, dasheen growing in the backyard, and some chickens in a cage. And, though there are those amongst us who romanticise such times, and many who still live them, the fact is that citizens have come to expect a higher standard of living in the 21st century. From one perspective, such expectations are unreasonably high and need to be adjusted. But the expectations also reflect the justifiable goals of a modern person and a modern society.

It is at this nexus that dissatisfaction can become social breakdown. Because more and more people are coming to believe that our present woes are not the result of inevitable factors, but the consequence of mismanagement on the part of a Government squandering recent energy revenues instead of saving for a rainy day. And now that the thunderclouds have begun to loom, the people are wondering what storm preparation those in power have made for the ordinary citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.