Attorney-at-law and intervenor in the upcoming Barbados Light and Power company (BLPC) rate hearing Tricia Watson has taken Government to task over the proposed amendment to the Electric Light and Power Act (2013-2021).The Bill, which is currently before the House of Assembly, provides a modification for Section 5 of the Act and an insertion of a Section 5A.Watson especially took umbrage at Section 5A (6), which states: “For the avoidance of doubt, nothing in this section entitles an interested party to have access to the application of any applicant for a licence.”Watson, while speaking on a radio programme on Friday, described the proposed amendment as “going completely against the tenets of public law, and completely unfair and egregious from any perspective you look at it”.“This is ridiculous. Not only is it ridiculous, it is unlawful. The law contemplates that where you are having a consultative process, the parties to that process must have access to the information that is under review, so there is not a case where the person who is making the decision saying ‘I have the information so the rest of you not needed’. That is not the way that it works in law. So that provision in itself is unlawful,” insisted Watson.
