Sark’s Electric Price Commissioner has suggested the island’s residents check with SEL’s owner that he is not using their money to settle outstanding debts owed by the company.

Shane Lynch has published his ‘preliminary conclusions’ following a hastily arranged investigation into two levies that were announced last week and added on to customers’ bills from 1 September.

The first ‘legal levy’ was a 40p per unit charge that Sark Electricity Limited said would be held by a third party to be used to fight Chief Pleas’ planned compulsory purchase of the company.

The second, a 20p levy, was announced the following day in response to the EPC saying he would investigate the 40p charge.

SEL said it would accrue money through the 20p per unit charge to challenge the result of the EPC’s investigation.

SEL’s owner, Alan Witney Price said any money left over once both matters have concluded will be returned to customers on a ‘first-in-first-out’ basis.

Pictured: An example of a customer’s bill for electricity in Sark this month.

Despite Mr Lynch only releasing his ‘preliminary’ findings, he has said that both charges are “very clearly, neither fair nor reasonable”.

However, he acknowledged that he does not have the legal power to make a price control order forcing SEL’s owner to remove the levies immediately.

Mr Lynch said he must follow a statutory process which could see a price control order imposed from the beginning of October instead.

In the meantime, he has considered the ramifications of SEL using Guernsey law firm Collas Crill as a third party to hold the money raised through the additional 60p per unit imposed on each customer from yesterday.

Mr Lynch suggested that customers may “wish to seek robust assurance from SEL that any money collected by the levies in September will not be used to settle any outstanding debts which SEL may already have with Collis Crill”.

He later reiterated this, writing in his preliminary report: “It is also not clear to me if the First In First Out (“FIFO”) approach that SEL is proposing to establish with Collis Crill would be used, in the first instance, to settle any outstanding debts which SEL may have. This is an issue that consumers may also wish to seek robust assurances on with SEL.”