MAYOR Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar requested the Crown Investment Holdings Incorporated to immediately pay the Western Mindanao Power Corporation (WMPC) or hasten the provision of other power sources and end the rotational blackouts in Zamboanga City.
Salazar’s request was contained in her letter dated April 1, 2019 to lawyer Joseph Omar Castillo, the president of Crown Investment Holdings Incorporated, the company that won the investment management contract for the Zamboanga City Electric Cooperative (Zamcelco).
Salazar said in her letter to Castillo that the residents and businesses have been complaining of longer and more frequent outages since February 4 adversely affecting this city’s economy.
“While we support the Investment Management Contract and laud your commitment to pump in P2.5 billion into Zamcelco, we can no longer tolerate the rotating blackouts,” Salazar said.
She added that Crown’s issues with the WMPC on the payment of accounts must be settled in the proper court.
The Crown refuses to pay the WMPC citing the power supplier have over billed Zamcelco, which the WMPC denies.
The WMPC, which is one of the power suppliers of Zamcelco, has stopped supplying the cooperative and is collecting the unpaid bills, which amounts to millions of pesos, for them to buy fuel to continue its operation.
Salazar said the people “cannot suffer further” as “we have been paying our monthly bills and we see no reason why we are made to suffer the consequences of the electric cooperative’s refusal to pay WMPC.”
She said that Zamboanga City, plays a key role not only in trade and commerce but in national security as well, thus, the stakes are too high if power outages will continue. (Bong Garcia/SunStar Philippines)