ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / May 8, 2012) – From 10 hours a day, power curtailment in Zamboanga City in Mindanao is down to only two hours now after the local electric cooperative inked a deal with Aboitiz Power’s Therma Marine Incorporated (TMI) for additional 18 MW (megawatts) of electricity.
Zamboanga’s daily power consumption is about 100 MW and the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative gets a little over half of its total requirements from the National Power Corporation.
TMI, which operates power barges in Mindanao, is also supplying electricity to other areas in Mindanao due to power curtailment imposed by the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines
The Aboitiz Group has been involved in the Philippine electricity industry the past seven decades. It said it would allocate P35 billion more for Mindanao to increase power capacity in the region which is suffering from electricity shortage. Mindanao needs about 1,597 MW daily and its current power output is below 1,200 MW.
With the power outages in Zamboanga, the Conal Holdings Corporation now is putting up a 100 MW coal-fired power plant, despite strong opposition from many residents in the village of Talisayan
Conal Holdings has already signed a memorandum of agreement with the Zamboanga City Freeport and Economic Zone for the fossil fuel power station. And the coal-fired power plant was even granted a so-called “no-objection” resolution from the Zamboanga City Council, although a few council members have rejected the project because of pollution and its effect to the environment.
The power problems in Zamboanga and other parts of Mindanao are also aggravated by the ongoing rehabilitation of the Pulangui hydropower plant in Bukidnon province and Agus in Lanao province.
The Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative now said it is negotiating with two commercial banks for P37-million loans to pay off the TMI deal and these shall be passed on to local electric consumers.
Last year, the head of the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative was sacked by the National Electrification Administration (NEA) over anomalous transactions involving millions of pesos in funding.
Many of its incumbent and former board directors were also removed and disqualified from holding any position in rural electric cooperatives in the country. Those accused denied all allegations against them and said all their transactions were legal and sanctioned by the NEA which had denied it.
Local business and civil groups, and politicians questioned the extravagant spending of the power firm despite its ballooning debts which reached over P1 billion.
NEA installed Engineer Jesus Castro as Project Supervisor to oversee the operation of the cooperative. (Mindanao Examiner)
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