They did it. The Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco), Primelectric Holdings Inc., and Negros Electric and Power Corporation (NEPC) signed a joint venture agreement over the weekend, which is supposed to improve the delivery of services to Ceneco member-consumers.
Since it was the Ceneco president and acting general manager that signed the JVA on behalf of the owners of the cooperative, which are its member-consumers, it would seem that it is the best solution the people in charge of Ceneco can come up with at this point. We don’t know if they did try to improve by putting in better technical, administrative, or managerial people, because up to now, the complaints against Ceneco continue to pile up, but it was disappointing to see them resort to such a cheap solution to what should’ve been a solvable problem.
We don’t know who or what allowed things to get so messed up within what is supposed to be our electric cooperative, but it looks like the people responsible for making things better have run out of ideas, so they are selling out instead. One has to wonder what is the thought process and motivation behind such a drastic decision, especially for people who are responsible for a cooperative that is supposed to be non-profit, yet has obviously the potential to make lots of profit. After all, isn’t that what the businessmen and investors who would propose a JVA be most interested in?
Ceneco management deciding to tap out and solve the problem with a JVA is disappointing for me because it is essentially an admission that none of the Negrense member-consumers, and the people we’ve been putting in charge, are capable of turning the cooperative around. And that is a shame because although Negrenses may be blowhards, I always thought it is because we can walk the talk, as we generally have the competency and capability to be at the very least competitive at what we put our minds and hearts into. Anything, except properly running a distribution utility, it would seem.
The only way to describe what Ceneco has done is self-sabotage, both on part of management, and on part of the member-consumers who are supposed to be its co-owners and therefore just as responsible. When management performed poorly in the past, we didn’t exercise our rights as owners and let whatever inadequate system that had been put in place do as it pleased. The situation had been degrading further as time went by, manifesting in unreliable and low-quality power, dodgy power supply contracts, and even us being forced to tolerate agonizing 8-hour “maintenance” brownouts for years, but because they told us so.
Nothing was improving, it was either Ceneco management was comfortable with their position because the member-consumers didn’t really complain too much and were mostly uninvolved during the general assemblies or elections, or they felt that they were untouchable for some reason. While this is essentially the fault of management, member-consumers can also take the blame for allowing it to go on for so long and not do anything.
This complacency and lack of action on both ends could’ve gone on for a few more decades, because although the service wasn’t great, we were still getting electricity in our homes most of the time. Not enough member-consumers were taking action by attending the assemblies or trying to change the course of the cooperative by influencing elections.
So when this JVA proposal comes along, promising to address all our complaints, for the price of selling the cooperative to businessmen who supposedly know how to run a distribution utility better, nobody in the Ceneco ecosystem has a counter prepared for it.
My disappointment comes from Ceneco management having been a pushover, not even fighting the JVA by coming up with a better plan, which is supposed to be their job. Perhaps they’ve already given up on Ceneco and are just waiting for a juicy payday. In that case, a management group like that should’ve tapped out long ago and allowed for people who are more willing, more competent, and more capable of defending the cooperative from any corporate takeover attempt. At the very least, Ceneco management could’ve tried to get better, instead of just giving up without even trying to protect the interests of its member-consumers.
Additional disappointment also comes from our apathy as member-consumers that led to this takeover that was like taking candy from a baby. If Ceneco management was self-sabotaging the coop’s performance in hope of a buyout, we also self-sabotaged our own electric coop by allowing them to run it to the ground without putting up our own fight. We complained, but it was only up to social media and the keyboard warriors in us couldn’t even be bothered to go to the general assembly, field a better candidate, and vote in the elections.
Because of this widespread self-sabotage, a lucky (or shrewd) business group is on the verge of acquiring a venture that should prove highly profitable, at our expense, all because we all failed in our stewardship of Ceneco.
Perhaps this JVA is something that we deserve after all.*
