THE chief executive of Northern Ireland Electricity, Dr Patrick Haren, has criticised the local generating companies for failing to follow his company's price cutting lead. Dr Haren said that following the recent report by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC), he had undertaken to make an immediate and permanent reduction of 28 per cent in electricity charges.

"I don't see this kind of response from the Northern Ireland generating industry, where according to the regulator, costs are around 30 per cent higher than they need to be," he said.

Some generators had been prepared to discuss renegotiating their contracts, but this had mostly been on the basis of recovering the full value of the original contracts over an extended period, he said.

However, Mr Richard Sterling, the managing director of the Derry based generator Coolkeeragh Power, said his company spent eight months negotiating changes to its contracts which would bring a 25 per cent reduction in NIE's availability payments, but NIE had not agreed to the final terms. "We call on NIE to accept the rescheduling deal now," he said.