B.T.L. proposes to change rates in September

If you got your copy of the Tuesday Amandala, you may have seen an advisory by Belize Telecommunications Limited informing customers that it intends to adjust rates yet again, effective September twelfth. However, users will notice that what appear to be “new” rates are awfully similar to the ones B.T.L. is already charging and was taken to court for imposing. Residential and business phone users will note with dismay that rather than getting back their old line access rates, if B.T.L. gets approval, they will be forced to continue to pay the same twenty dollar residential and fifty dollar business rates they have been bitterly complaining about since last year.

The often silent Public Utilities Commission lost no time today in issuing their own public advisory…and they did not mince words saying quote, “The planned rate revisions and the proposed implement date of September twelfth, 2003 set out in the Customer Advisory in the Tuesday Amandala have not been approved by the P.U.C. and are in violation of the rates prescribed by law. The P.U.C. has notified B.T.L. that they should be left in no doubt that the P.U.C. would regard B.T.L.’s conduct in seeking to impose tariffs other than those prescribed by the regulations made by the P.U.C. as in breach of their Licence and a violation of the Law. The P.U.C. would take such steps as the law provides.”