The Commerce Minister has raised concerns about the comments made by the Fiji Employers Federation that they were not consulted by the Commerce Commission before the interim increase in FEA tariffs were announced last week.
Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum said this is not a time for political point scoring and the Employers Federation could have made submissions if it wanted to, as it was public knowledge that a review of the tariffs was underway.
Sayed-Khaiyum said everyone in Fiji including business houses know that FEA has been running on a loss due to the low tariffs.
The Commerce Minister said people should also understand why the low end domestic consumers like garment factory workers have been provided a buffer decrease in electricity tariff reduction.
Sayed-Khaiyum said the Commerce Commission will soon conduct a major review on FEA tariffs and all interested parties should make submissions.
The Commerce Commission announced last week that low end consumers who use less than 130 kilowatts of power per month will pay 17 cents per unit which is a decrease of 16.4 percent.
This means that for a household with a FEA bill of $30 per month will now have to pay $25.08 cents per month.
Commercial and industrial tariffs increase by 2.2 cents to 11 cents per unit depending on the consumption rate.
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FEF should understand-Sayed Khaiyum
