Government will buy back water company

It was one of those marriages that looked doomed from the start… and after four years of acrimony, the Belize government and Belize Water Services Limited have finally called it quits. That’s right, according to a G.O.B. press release, the government will be repurchasing the utility–for the same price at which it was sold. Under the share purchase agreement signed today, CASCAL, the European based majority owner, will sell its eighty-two point six-eight percent holding in the company for twenty-four point eight million U.S. dollars, an amount equal to one dollar and fifty cents Belize per share. Belmopan will pay a U.S. fourteen point nine million down payment before October third, at which time Cascal will transfer the shares and relinquish control. The nine point nine U.S. dollar balance due will be paid over four years at ten percent interest. According to the release, government plans to resell a majority of its shares to the public and will be putting together a prospectus shortly. B.W.S. and G.O.B. have locked horns in recent years over rate increases and the scope of service the privatised company was to provide to the public. In its previous incarnation as the government owned Water and Sewerage Authority, WASA was notorious for its lax management, poor service, and inability to separate political and business decisions. While the sale presumably will terminate the ongoing disputes between the government and CASCAL, unless we’ve learned from the experience, there is no guarantee that the second marriage will be any more successful than the first.