Editor,

I agree with Prime Minister Tu'ivakano on halting the Tonga Power Limited's (TPL) utility rate increase request to avoid a TO$200,193 shortfall until further studies (16 Feb 2011). The rate increase was to jump $0.08 seniti per "unit" (.84 to .92 s), and TPL is threatening to go out of business if not approved.

First, we all agree that Tonga Power Limited is a profit-making "monopoly," protected by law, and TPL has no competitions. The layman's definition of a "monopoly" is that new entries to the electrical power business is closed. The opposite is a "deregulated" industry, which wipes out the monopoly protection, thus allowing for new entries of competitors, which always improves service, and lowers prices for the consumers.

TPL has not shown me (Mr. Public) that it had taken all the necessary steps to improve service, nor had it tried cost-savings measures such as down-sizing, reduce wasted loads on the grids during low-peak hours, improve efficiency, and lower labor costs. Is the corporation top heavy, and has it stream-lined its overheads?

Public Utility Transparency?

Mr. Public wants to see a published list of the directors' salaries, and on down to the meter-person. Have they been offered salary reductions, early retirements, etc., to reduce labor costs? A comparison of those salaries to the public sector's comparable wages should shed some light on how efficient and cost-conscious TPL's management is.

Since TPL also enjoys government subsidies, Mr. Public wants to see transparency in this monopolized, but essential public utility. TPL has an ethical and moral responsibilities to its consumers who are unable to have a choice of power companies. TPL may be a profit-making entity, but its consumers are stakeholders in the enterprise operations, and are also suffering financially during these hard economics times.

TPL must also try to improve its public image from a power-hungry mechanical creature to a more user-friendly public servant. It is true that world oil prices are the driving "independent variables" in this energy problem. However, putting all the blame on the world oil prices does not prove the true direct correlations between the "independent variables" (oil prices) and the "dependent variables" (price per kwh).

There are too many extraneous variables in between, thus revealing a flawed claim that the oil prices are to be blamed entirely.

Sione Akemeihakau Mokofisi, MBA
samokofisi [at] emai [dot] phoenix [dot] edu