I am not a Trustpower subscriber but have held their shares and was a subscriber until they pushed prices to the very top of suppliers' costs. I have had experience of another electricity consumer trust where all subscribers received an annual cheque regardless of which retail power supplier they used. The list of subscribers is held by the lines company for each area. This meant that an accurate comparison of retail power costs could be made and consumers still received a cheque prior to Christmas. It seems to me that such a change to the TECT scheme would satisfy all parties and force Trustpower to become competitive.

After all, the biggest benefactor from TECT is Trustpower by an extremely conservative amount of $400 per customer x about 40,000 consumers i.e. at least $16 million per annum.

If there is no change, TECT should be called Trustpower Electricity Consumers Trust because the biggest benefactor is Trustpower, followed by their Tauranga customers and lastly, the community.

S Walton, Bellevue.