Minister of Works Transport and Infrastructure, Olo Fiti Vaai’s change in stance in opening up to the media is a welcome note, showing his willingness to be transparent. He is right in stating that the power demand has gone up.

This is why many have seen the fluctuation in power supply, simply referred to as power surges.

It is also glad to note that the minister has clarified that the Electric Power Corporation is not in financial distress. EPC owes close to half a million in license fees to the Office of the Regulator and more than $10 million to the fuel suppliers.

The minister said these were manageable loans and are being paid. Let us take the minister’s word for it because if this is not true, it will come to the surface when the annual reports are released and show if the loans are manageable or not.

In 2023, a former board member disclosed to the newspaper that the 20 per cent reduction in electricity bills has proven costly for E.P.C as they have failed to meet operational demands leading to a SAT$60 million loss at the end of 2022.

This would mean that by the time the discount of 20 per cent was revoked, a further estimated loss of $30 million or more could have been incurred.

This seems to be a more plausible reason why there were no upgrades of the grids or infrastructure leading to the current power surges.

There is a 10 per cent increase in demand, however, these are the type of things that should be factored in every year based on forecasts. Every year, the demand grows because people are building more and they are upgrading.

This is no rocket science and it seems a poor excuse to say that they had no way to tell because the transformers do not show the increase in demand. Surely, there is equipment that measures that.

The Minister said the problem is the corporation does not have a monitoring system to read the capacity of transformers from various areas that can identify the overload, it is currently done manually.

He said this is in the pipeline to consider such a system to monitor transformers and avoid power outages.

When the discount was revoked last year, first in July 2023 for government offices and then in November for all non-residential customers, it was not only the discount that was revoked. To compensate for the increase in fuel, the cost per unit also increased from 62 sene per unit to $1.21 per unit.

After these dates, electricity costs more than doubled. It is wrong to say that electricity costs went up only 20 per cent. A telecommunication provider told Samoa Observer, that after the increase, they were paying 60 per cent more in power bills which in monetary value was more than $1 million every year.

The Minister had said the revocation of the 20 per cent for non-domestic means the power bills had returned to the normal cost it hadn’t been increased.

He raised the question that if businesses are complaining about the electricity cost then why they did not drop the cost of their products and services when there was reduced costs. That is a good point made by the minister for the businesses to consider.

It is good to know that following the measles and COVID-19 lockdowns, the E.P.C. was slowly recovering after helping the public with electricity costs.

The corporation having paid US$23 million of a US$100 million loan from the Asia Development Bank (A.D.B.) for the Fale ole Fee Dam is also positive.

While remedial work is being done to bring EPC to par, we urge that all future infrastructure work in the country plan ahead for the next 30 years at least. For the power grid, there should already be estimates of the expected growth and things that need to be done now, so we can move away from band-aid solutions.

We look forward to the transition to renewable energy and hopefully, the target of 70 per cent is achieved by 2030. We also hope that this transition also provides a reduction in electricity costs to consumers.

Well-maintained infrastructure serves as a catalyst for economic growth and enhanced productivity. Efficient transportation networks, reliable power grids, and functional utilities facilitate the seamless movement of goods, services, and people. Through minimising disruptions and delays, infrastructure maintenance fosters a smooth flow of commerce, stimulates business activities, and bolsters overall productivity.