Power Watch Negros is optimistic House Bill 9805 seeking to grant the Negros Electric Power Corporation (NEPC) a franchise to take over the electric power distribution system of Central Negros Electric Cooperative (CENECO), which was recently approved by the House of Representatives on third and final reading, will be signed into law.
“We are expecting big things to happen in the power industry once this bill will be signed into law by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.“, Power Watch Secretary General Wennie Sancho said in a press statement issued Friday, February 23.
The granting of the franchise would allow NEPC to establish, operate, and maintain an electric power distribution system in the cities of Bacolod, Silay, Talisay, and Bago, and the municipalities of Murcia and Don Salvador Benedicto in Negros Occidental for 25 years.
NEPC will enhance power system reliability in its coverage area, Sancho said.
The entry of NEPC in the local power industry is an answer to the “decades of inconvenience and inefficient services brought about by mismanagement and abuse of power by the people who had been sworn to serve the consumers”, Sancho said.
Power Watch looks forward to NEPC’s rehabilitation and improvement of CENECO’s power distribution system, Sancho said.
Sancho said that most of CENECO’s equipment are no longer in their “useful life” period, and are already in the “wear-out” period.
Power Watch has very high expectations for NEPC to deliver quality, reliable, and secure power supply, and to perform its intended function of providing excellent services to the consumers, Sancho said.*