The National Electrification Administration supports an electric cooperative takeover for financially distressed ECs, instead of outright privatization.
NEA administrator Edgardo Masongsong encouraged all community-owned power distribution utilities to work together and pool their resources in aid of struggling co-ops.
“If possible, let us all be of help to one another, raise our own funds so that we can offer our services to electric cooperatives requiring investment management contract before anybody else,” the NEA chief said in a statement.
Masongsong said ECs continued to face challenges in the rural electrification sector, including the need to address persistent complaints of inefficiency among underperforming ECs.
The NEA chief expressed his desire for “well-off cooperatives” to help the government find more creative solutions to the lingering problems besetting the industry, including the constant threat of a private company taking over the franchise of an ailing EC.