Samoa's EPC denies meter tampering scheme

Transcript

Samoa's Electric Power Corporation is denying there is a fraudulent scheme involving the alleged tampering of cash power meters and the involvement of staff.

The Samoa Observer published an article stating the EPC had a revenue shortfall of millions of dollars, allegedly because of the scheme, which was recently detected and thought to have started after Cyclone Evan.

Sara Vui-Talitu has more.

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Samoa's opposition says not noticing an 11 million tala or $US5 million shortfall in revenue means that EPC systems needs a complete overhaul. A spokesman for the Tautua Samoa Party, Palusalue Faaopo II, says it's disappointing, but someone needs to be held to account. He says he is interested to know the outcome of the corporation's investigation.

11 million is huge, huge money not being collected by the EPC. So the government should look at where the problem was, the reason why they were not able to collect this 11 million. It's a lot of money, especially because some people are getting away with not being charged.

He says dating the problem back to the cyclone sounds like an excuse.

They shouldn't be blaming it on Cyclone Evan. They shouldn't blame it on that. It's the EPC not doing their job properly to ensure that all this money is collected.

When asked over the telephone if there was any fraudulent scheme involving meter tampering, the general manager of the EPC said the local newspaper got it wrong. Tologata Lupematasila Tagaloatele Tuilaeali'ifano said the drop in revenue is just a transmission and distribution associated cost where a 7%-to-10% loss is usual. And he said the lost revenue is not something that just happened after the cyclone, either. He declined to comment further, saying a statement would be released on the matter shortly. But our correspondent in Apia spoke to one Samoan family who say they were questioned by EPC staff about their meter because of the huge drop in revenue. The family, who didn't want to be named, said a faulty cash power meter the corporation gave them resulted in wrong readings. Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia says the family said they reported the fault months before cyclone evan hit and can't be blamed.

It stopped sometime after buying it from the Electric Power Corporation office at Vaitele. But the problem was they reported the matter several times through the EPC to come and have a look at the meter, but none of them came.

But he says the family are among other customers now fearing increased power bills. Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia says the EP does have a chequered history of alleged abuse of public assets in the past, including metre tampering, which resulted in some staff being suspended previously.