V.I. Inspector General Steven van Beverhoudt will not try to determine if a rate reduction is in order for V.I. Telephone Corp. customers, he told senators last week. But he does intend to investigate any wrongdoing on the part of members of the Public Services Commission.
After Sen. Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg circulated a petition to his colleagues to call a Committee of the Whole meeting to address Vitelco and the PSC, majority senators instead referred the matter to the V.I. Bureau of Audit and Control for investigation.
Van Beverhoudt laid out the scope of his investigation in letters to Senate President Vargrave Richards and Donastorg.
"Our audit will be limited to a review of the circumstances surrounding the decision of the members of the PSC, not to conduct a formal rate hearing," he said.
In June 1997, the Senate passed a bill asking the PSC to reduce Vitelco's rates by 20 percent. Vitelco had recently received preliminary approval on IDC benefits exempting it from excise tax, gross receipts tax, property tax at 100 percent and a 90 percent exemption from income tax.
The PSC ignored the request initially, but eventually hired a consulting firm to investigate Vitelco's rates. When the consultants submitted the report, the PSC dismissed it. Afterward, the PSC's legal counsel, Maria Tankenson-Hodge, resigned.
Van Beverhoudt said he does plan to read the report, "just to see what it says." But he made clear that he was not in a position to question the report, the methods used or how the report was done.
