Copyright trinidadexpress
Vendors returned to Femmes Du Chalet (The Breakfast Shed) on the Port of Spain waterfront on Monday. Financial adviser Robert Le Hunte said yesterday that small vendors at the Breakfast Shed have been burdened with electricity bills far exceeding their actual consumption, a matter now under review by the Regulated Industries Commission (RIC). Le Hunte raised the billing concerns, stating that vendors at the popular food spot have been overcharged for years under an industrial rather than a commercial rate. After weeks of closure due to disconnection and a demand letter for arrears owed to the Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT), vendors returned to their business place on Monday following meetings involving T&TEC, the RIC, Le Hunte and attorney Kenneth Munroe-Brown. In an interview with the Express yesterday, Le Hunte described the matter as unfortunate, lamenting that the small vendors were paying electricity bills beyond their usage. He explained that the outstanding bill was a facility of $300,000 from T&TEC, adding that this was the reason for the disconnection. “I think the problem with the Breakfast Shed is that somewhere along the line…the Breakfast Shed was assessed as an industrial D2 customer. And there’s something called KVI utilising to use something like 215 KVI. That is what was done since 2006. The reality is the Breakfast Shed only used about 10% of that capacity. So, they only used 20 KVI,” Le Hunte explained. He continued, “And, therefore, from 2006 to now, the Breakfast Shed bill was about $14,000 a month, where, based on usage, they should have only been charged about $2,000 a month. So, because they were simple business people, and because they didn’t know, and because the facility was given to them, if you do the math, the Breakfast Shed has paid in excess of usage over $2 million in excess electricity bill.” Total disregard ► sub head ◄ He said they were shut down for $300,000 “when they have actually paid outside of usage something like $3 million.” According to Le Hunte, the Breakfast Shed approached T&TEC in 2023 to have this issue rectified but “nothing was done”. He outlined two ways in which the matter could be fixed. “It could either be fixed by having the place rewired, and that would move it from industrial to commercial…Or it could have been fixed by a reallocation or re-categorising of the Breakfast Shed instead of being a D2 industrial, to a D1 industrial. The second approach was very easy. It’s just administrative.” He said T&TEC recommended rewiring, but he argued that the cost was exorbitant and would have also require permission from UDeCOTT. He noted that if T&TEC had simply applied the reclassification, the bill would have come down from $13,000 to $5,000. “Now, the bill with the rewiring would have come from $5,000 to $2,000, but it is still better to come down from $13,000 to $5,000. “But nothing was done. So, during the period 2016 to now, the Breakfast Shed basically, over a 24-month period, they basically paid about $9,000 in excess because nobody paid anything. So, they should have been paying like $4,000, but they continue to pay $13,000,” he added. Le Hunte described the situation as “a total neglect in my mind and a total disregard for a small customer and almost taking advantage of a small customer’s ignorance.” Le Hunte is hopeful that continued discussions with the RIC will bring a resolution to the matter, as he believes “had T&TEC given the proper advice to the customer, these arrears would not have happened.” Meanwhile, he said he has written to UDeCOTT requesting a meeting to discuss the way forward, but has only received an acknowledgment with no set timeframe for a response.
