Liam Stewart.
SDLP local council election candidate Liam Stewart has today welcomed news that consumers will not be paying “exorbitant’ prices” that Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) had been pushing for customers to pay.
The Competition Commission’s final determination, published yesterday, set the cost to be paid for electricity by consumers over the next three years stating consumers will see their bills lowered by £10 by 2017.
NIE has also been asked to refund consumers for the period since April 2012 when this price control was originally due to come into force.
Mr Stewart said: “This news today justifies the involvement of the Utility Regulator from the word ‘go’.
The Competition Commissioner has upheld the view that NIE’s costings would see bills for the average consumer soar; at a time when many families throughout the Strabane district and across the North are facing severe hardship and are struggling to pay household bills.
“However, the one aspect of the Commissioner’s decision which we in the SDLP find utterly peculiar is that consumers will end up footing half the bill – upwards of £1.4 million – of the costs incurred by a private, commercial business – NIE – in challenging the original decision. That is really bizarre.”
Mr Stewart concluded: “I am pleased to hear that the Utility Regulator is due before the ETI committee shortly and my SDLP colleagues in the Assembly will be asking what can be done, as soon as possible, to reverse an unfair and bizarre decision that would see struggling families paying for this debacle.”
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