ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Sept. 19, 2013) – After getting criticisms from electric consumers, the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative – which earlier insisted on collecting fines and penalties from late payors – has finally agreed to waive all surcharges.
The cooperative has been criticised after it imposed the collections of the surcharges despite the crisis in Zamboanga City. Omar Sahi, the president of the utility firm, said there is a need to collect surcharges for them to be able to pay power firms from where they buy electricity.
Sahi, in an interview with a local radio network, dxRZ Radyo Agong, was more worried about how to collect from consumers in the villages of Santa Barbara and Santa Catalina where hundreds of houses had burned due to the fighting.
“How can we collect now? Look at what happened in the villages. We need to pay our electric debts too,” he said.
Authorities suspended all government and private offices because of fighting between security and rebel forces.
But residents are more worried about where to get the next meal. Hundreds of thousands of residents in Zamboanga have no work the past week after the local government suspended all work both in government and private offices. And 95% of all commercial establishments were also forced to shut down because of the violence.
Rebels, who are fighting for a separate homeland, stormed several villages on September 9 and took nearly 200 people hostage and used them as shield against security forces.
The fighting had already killed over 100 people and resulted in a humanitarian crisis in Zamboanga where some 100,000 people fled their homes due to the skirmishes. (Mindanao Examiner)
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