All eyes are on the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) as Barbadians await the responses of intervenors and the deliberations of the regulator to the application of Barbados Light & Power (BL&P) for a rate increase.While the public is still in the dark about the finer details of the BL&P bid, the most important issue for Barbadians from every walk of life is that the monopoly electricity supplier wants a near 12 per cent increase. And they want it at a time when most of us can least afford.An examination of householders’ electricity bills will reveal that the bulk of the final cost is actually in the fuel charge, something over which homeowners have little control.The fuel charge can rise and fall, based on the cost at which the power company must purchase fuel from the sole importer, which happens to be a government-owned entity, the Barbados National Oil Company.
