ICE Being Asked To Reimburse ¢1.1 Billion Colones To Customers
September 16th, 2009 | by admin |The Autoridad Reguladora de los Servicios Públicos (Aresep) – regulator of public services – is looking for the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) – the state monopoly on electrical services – to give back electricity customers some ¢1.1 billion colones for the nine days it stalled the rate decrease.
On Monday, Aresep officials say they filed an appeal with the Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo to force ICE to reimburse customers for its stall tactics, when it filed an appeal with the same court to have the Aresep electrical rate decrease cancelled.
The rate reduction was to have taken effect on September 1. The Tribunal temporarily suspended the rate reduction while it hear arguments on a motion filed by ICE. The tribunal did not hand down a decision until September 9, voting in favour of the rate reduction, which took effect on September 10.
Thus customers were left to pay the higher rates nine days longer than they should have, and that is the basis of the Aresep filing, arguing that article 34 of the Autoridad sets out that any changes in public prices and services are effective on the day of publication in the official government daily, La Gaceta. The only exception to this rule are gasoline prices, that take effect one day following publication.
The reimbursement by ICE has also the support of the Defensoría de los Habitantes, who on Monday sent a letter to Fernanado Herrero, the regulador general, to take action.
Bothe Aresep and the Defensoría see no justification that legitimizes ICE pocketing the reduction amount for the nine days.
The rate reduction was published on September 1.
