THE National Electrification Administration (NEA) approved the discontinuance of P295 million worth of rural electrification programs this year to augment the funding for the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic instead.
Edgardo Masongsong, NEA administrator, said these were the P250 million appropriated for the implementation of the Electric Cooperatives Emergency and Resiliency Fund Act and the P45 million for the establishment of Customer Management and Quick Response System for selected electric cooperatives (ECs).
He added these were also the programs recommended by the Department of Budget and Management for discontinuance to partially generate the required amount to help address the health situation in the country.
Likewise, NEA committed to discontinue the 10 percent or P10.9 million of the appropriations for the electrification of local government unit/non-government organizations resettlement sites as they were deemed no longer feasible for completion within the year.
Earlier, the agency remitted around P1.35 billion of unused subsidies and dividends to the Bureau of the Treasury, as requested by the Department of Finance, to support efforts to mitigate the impact of the ongoing public health crisis.
Of the amount, P1.26 billion represents unutilized subsidy funds received in 2016 and earlier, and P85.71 million in dividends to the national government for 2019 operations.
As a supervisory body to 121 ECs nationwide, NEA regularly monitors distribution system parameters such as systems loss and reliability, circuit kilometers and substation capacity to ensure that they remain operationally reliant and technically efficient in delivering service to their member-consumers. It is also mandated to implement the total electrification of the country.
