by Myrna Velasco October 23, 2016
The government will need to shell
out at least P80 billion in annual subsidy for the power sector to gain that
leverage of lowering rates to the level of the subsidized energy markets of
Asian neighbors.
This has been the assessment of
Australian consulting firm International Energy Consultants (IEC) and its
prescription on the never-ending debate if there are measures that can be done
to bring down power rates similar to those enjoyed by other countries.
Filipinos are incessantly
complaining about perceived high electricity tariffs, despite recent result of
the IEC survey indicating that power rates in the franchise area of Manila
Electric Company (Meralco) had already been down 28 percent (excluding the
value-added tax component) compared to 2012.
IEC Managing Director John Morris
said “government subsidies continued to play to make power rates artificially
low in markets like Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan.”
For these five countries, their
aggregate subsidies for electricity had been estimated at $50 billion for 2015
alone. South Korea funneled the biggest subsidy at $18.4 billion; then
Indonesia at $12.8 billion; Taiwan at $8.5 billion; Thailand at $5.1 billion;
and Malaysia at $4.3 billion.
Morris said the equivalent subsidy
of these specified countries as integrated in their power rates had been 4.2 US
cents or R1.96 per kilowatt-hour.
Amid the harrowing fiscal smash of
such subsidies in the government budgets of these countries, their cheaper
electricity rates remained an interminable envy of Filipino consumers.
No comments:
Post a Comment