PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – The SHTA on May 14, 2020 released insidious statements to the media through a press release directly affecting the integrity of the Managing Directors of NV GEBE and by extent the employees’. The SHTA stated that it is “concerned that during the lockdown of the past months, GEBE tariffs seemingly have gone up for consumers,” and that “GEBE has enjoyed benefits of the reduced cost of fuel …” The Managing Board of NV GEBE considers these remarks as inflammatory and extremely misleading to the general public of St. Maarten and hereby refutes these statements.
NV GEBE, over the years, has on numerous occasions and through various media sources done its best to provide information to the general public about its way of work, including the monthly applied fuel clause, the tariff structure, understanding the monthly invoice, ideas for lowering electricity and water consumption and more. Some information can also be found on our Facebook page.
On March 23, 2020, NV GEBE, in response to the COVID 19 pandemic, announced that it would grant a temporary relief to its consumers, effective April 01, 2020. The relief, implemented for a period of six months and applied to the monthly fuel clause, allows customers to register a monthly savings based on this varying monthly cost.
The fuel clause, calculated and applied monthly to the consumed electricity over the same period of time, per household/business, has been reduced to a fixed amount of Ang. 0.18 for the next six months. This relief was sanctioned by the Council of Ministers by way of a resolution to NV GEBE.
As the COVID 19 continued to become a global disaster, and the Prime Minister implemented the phase of social distancing, scaled down workforces and stay at home orders to combat the spread of the virus within the community, the Managing Board of NV GEBE, out of concern for the employees, decided to suspend the work of some employees. The meter reading for the month of March had been completed and it was decided that no reading of meters would be carried out during the month of April and that a combined invoice of two months would be issued for each service. This identical process was carried out in 2017 after the passing of Hurricane Irma.
Electricity invoice EXPLAINED
NV GEBE has prepared an example of an electricity and water bill for explanation. The electricity invoices below, outline an invoice with the COVID 19 relief of a reduced fuel clause (see picture 1) and an electricity invoice without the COVID 19 relief of a fixed rate of Ang. 0.18 for the next six months (see picture 2). Please place attention to ones consumption on the past bills as that varies based on one demand daily of electricity and water monthly.
This give you an indication of your monthly demand. NV GEBE continue to calculate the fuel clause with the reduce fuel price received from our fuel supplier. The fuel clause would have been at Ang. 0.21. This will be monitored by NV GEBE monthly based on the price of fuel purchased locally.
Water invoice EXPLAINED
Below you will find examples of the water invoices. The examples depict a March invoice (picture 1), an April invoice (picture 2) and a combined invoice for March and April (picture 3). The combined invoice represents the “as it stands” billing that NV GEBE was forced to apply due the COVID 19 precautionary measures that had been implemented.
On each customer water bill above the 20 cubic meters of water consumption NV GEBE incurs a loss of Ang. 1.00. For Customers with less than 20 cubic meters of water consumption the loss for NV GEBE range from Ang. 1.00 to Ang. 15.00 this mainly due to the one time fixed fees that is applied. Should there be any future concerns feel free to contact our Customer Care department at CUSTOMERCARE@nvgebe.com
NV GEBE hopes that this explanation will prove to be sufficient and that all insinuations are put to rest.
