IN LINE with the Benguet Electric Cooperative’s (Beneco) move to register with the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA), member consumers will soon have their shares after the referendum.
Beneco corporate lawyer Delmar Cariño said with the plan of the cooperative to register with the CDA, member consumers will not be required to subscribe for shares.
“Beneco will already compute for the member consumers their share contributions pursuant to the total amount they have paid for the reinvestment fund for sustainable capital expenditures or RFSC which is one of the components of the bill being paid for by the member consumers to pay the loans of the cooperative,” Cariño said.
The payment be computed from 2004 to 2018 depending on the decision of the board on how many would be the share of each consumer.
“The board decided to compute the RFSC beginning 2004 because this was the time that Beneco implemented the unbundled rate system. At the moment, what has been approved by the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) is the collection of P.2178 per Kilowatt hour as payment for the RFSC,” Cariño said.
The power distributor is confident it will go through the process of converting with the CDA based on the results of the three previous Annual General Membership Assembly (AGMA) where 5,090 voted in favor of the registration and 1,228 opposed.
“We are confident because the results are already showing that many of the consumers have voted in favor, and it is the decision of the AGMA that we are to really register with the CDA which we have to obey,” Carino added.
Beneco’s conversion have engaged the services of a technical working group knowledgeable of the conversion an£ registration process with the CDA.
Beneco’s move to register with the CDA is brought about by the threat of private big moneyed capitalists wanting to take over the franchise areas of electric cooperatives.
This aside from the belief that once Beneco is registered with the CDA, the cooperative would not easily give in to capitalists without the full consent of the members.