…But the rates differ for municipalities

The rate reduction to take effect in February, according to Avery, is sort of a slap on the wrist for BWSL which did not implement approved investments. Except for the islanders in Caye Caulker, the reduction in your water bill depends on consumption, but it represents an average drop of a little more than seven percent.  The rates differ for consumers on the mainland, in Belize City and Belmopan with San Pedro residents paying the most for water and sewer.

John Avery, Chairman, Public Utilities Commission

John Avery

“A major part of the reason for increasing the rates was for them to be able to make these investments and pay for them and so we believe that having not made the investments there must be some sort of penalty, and I will say penalty in quotes because it’s not really a penalty as such we’re applying but we believe that we needed to do something to send a message that we want them to be more aggressive with their investment plan not only because it will improve service and should ultimately reduce the average cost to consumers but given the global and local economic climate we wanted to make these investments to spur some economic activities in the country.  We believe they need to be more aggressive to seek out financing.  We hear about all the liquidity in the banks.  We hear about interest rates going down.  We know that traditionally BWS has been able to access fairly attractive financing from outside of Belize and with government as the major shareholder we don’t see why that cannot be revisited and they cannot access the financing, particularly when we have approved these projects before hand and have made provisions for future rates to pay back for these projects.  So given all that we believe BWS is in a good enough position if they are aggressive enough and focused enough to access the financing.  What I described there generally were the determinations of the commission and the overall result is an average seven point two percent reduction in rates for all branches except for the Caye Caulker branch.”

Click here for a look at the new tariffs.