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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesWHO DO OUR SENATORS REPRESENT?

WHO DO OUR SENATORS REPRESENT?

It is sad and shocking that our senators continue to ignore the repeated request of their colleague, Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg, for a rate investigation of our phone company.
It is particularly reprehensible in light of the recent discovery that the V.I. Telephone Corp., a regulated public utility receiving enormous tax breaks, was paying employees of other non-Vitelco companies from Vitelco's payroll.
When the Source and the Independent reported the payroll irregularities, the response was that Vitelco was keeping records and was being reimbursed by VitelCom, St. Thomas-St. John Cable TV, the Daily News and other companies owned by Jeffrey Prosser, owner of Innovative Communication Corp.
How do we know that, without an investigation or audit conducted by highly skilled, experienced people who could sleuth out even the most well-hidden irregularities?
And isn't it interesting that on Friday last, only a few days before the issue was brought up in the Legislature, Vitelco finally filed financial reports with the Public Services Commission going back as far as August 1999?
These reports are supposed to be filed monthly.
And our legislators do not see any reason for an investigation?
This raises serious questions about the senators themselves.
There has not been a thorough investigation of Vitelco since 1992. Why? Other jurisdictions require regular investigations of their telephone companies. Why do we only require investigations when the company seeks a rate increase? How can consumers be sure the company is earning its mandated 11.5 percent profit — not more and not less?
Donastorg has made this a one-man mission and he has been relentless, undoubtedly to the annoyance of his colleagues. But Donastorg has raised many legitimate issues. Among them:
– The last two rate investigations, in 1990 and 1988, each resulted in a rate decrease.
–– Current Vitelco profits are estimated at more than 25 percent, when by law the utility's maximum allowed rate of return is 11.5 percent.
–– Earnings more than tripled, from $6.2 million in 1996 to $20.5 in 1997, after the company was granted 100 percent tax breaks, and estimated earnings continue to skyrocket.
–– Vitelco billed customers more than $2 million a year for hurricane insurance it never purchased, then used a claim of financial hardship due to its lack of insurance as the basis for seeking more tax breaks. But the company has not provided the PSC with documentation of its hurricane losses.
–– Georgetown Consulting Group's preliminary report a year ago stated that Vitelco had overcharged consumers by more than $20 million.
–– The inspector general has recommended that the PSC conduct a telephone rate investigation and that the territory join the many states that mandate periodic rate reviews.
The people of the Virgin Islands, who seem to be paying high phone rates to make up for the multiple taxes that Vitelco is not paying, should be hopping mad. We hope their ire will be fully evident when they go to the polls in November.
After all, whose interests are these senators protecting? Certainly not the public's.

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