P.U.P.: Barrow’s Smoke & Mirrors Circus Act

So on the eve of the New Year, the P.U.C. has not responded to government’s objection to the increase of forty-three cents in electricity rates. The P.U.C. chair, we are told, is away and so is the Prime Minister.  But the People’s United Party is lambasting the government for the “smoke and mirrors act.”  A release states that the P.U.P. rejects, with extreme prejudice, the duplicitous and ludicrous game being played by the Government of Belize, B.E.L. and the P.U.C.  It explains that on one hand, B.E.L. asked for a raise in electricity rates, the P.U.C. decided that B.E.L. asked for too little and so they ‘gifted’ them with more than what they asked for. G.O.B. then stepped in and asked the P.U.C. to revisit its ‘gift’ to B.E.L. and hold back any increase at all for the next six months. The P.U.P. also notes that the government controls the boards of B.E.L. and the P.U.C., which serve at the whim of the Prime Minister. It also claims that the P.U.C.’s chair, John Avery, never makes a move without first getting the nod from the Prime Minister. The party also attests that there is little or no doubt that the Prime Minister was apprised of B.E.L.’s application for a raise and little or no doubt that he knew the P.U.C. would approve exactly how much it did.