B.E.L. and P.U.C. square off in court over un-submitted FTRPs
Lynn Young
The rapport between the nation’s local electricity supplier and the regulatory body has been less than amicable and it got really ugly about a year ago when the two ended up in court. The Belize Electricity Limited went to court because it disagreed with the PUC’s position that it owed customers over thirty million dollars in reimbursements. On Wednesday it was the other way around; the PUC took B.E.L. to court for a charge of failure to submit a Full Tariff Review Proceeding since January of 2009. The case was adjourned for April eighth. But B.E.L.’s Chief Executive Officer, Lynn Young, says that the court action by the PUC is frivolous. While this may be so, he’s also conditioning his mind for whatever outcome including – guess what – jail time.
Lynn Young, C.E.O., B.E.L.
“The law says that B.E.L. must make an application for tariff review every year and in this particular instance it’s for a full tariff review. We had gotten the request from the PUC for the information for the full tariff review. We submitted all the information that they had requested. There is one section of the law that says that we are supposed to issue in coordination with the PUC a public notice. We never did get back a response from the PUC on our submission so because the 2008 decision is in court, we are trying to finalise that, we assumed that the PUC was not going to do any more tariff reviews until they got that settled, which we would have thought is the logical way to go, but it seems that the PUC is now saying you did not put a public notice so we’re going to summons you so we’re going to have to go through the process I guess. It was difficult to submit the information because the previous tariff decision we had challenged it in court. So in terms of the full tariff review, it was supposed to be a four-year projection on how the rates are going to be adjusted, but how the rates will be adjusted depends on what’s the final outcome of the 2008 tariff review. So we are waiting now for the court to convene to make a decision on the 2008—in the meantime though, we have told the government and the PUC that we don’t need a rate increase anymore because what has happened is that the oil prices back then it was a hundred and forty something dollars per barrel, it’s dropped back to about eighty dollars a barrel now or maybe a little less. That is still high but we’ve been doing things over the last ten years, Belcogen is coming online, Hydro Maya came online, Vaca is coming online this month so those are all sources that are not affected by oil prices. So we are in a much better position now than we were in 2008.”
Marion Ali
“With reference to this charge brought against the company, you’re convinced that you will be successful in court?”
Lynn Young
“I don’t know, I may end up in jail. I won’t die from a heart attack, that’s for sure.”
Jason Rivers, the Manager of Financial Reports and Records, represented B.E.L. in court and pleaded not guilty.
