Chamber Breaks Silence on National Gas Company Limited

In August, the government tabled and passed the National Liquefied Petroleum Gas Project Bill which essentially establishes a monopoly which then controls the importation and price of butane. The Bureau of Standards has been tasked to regulate the price of wholesale L.P.G. and ensure that the cost remains affordable. Government has a twenty-five percent stake in the company, and its move to establish the monopoly, has raised eyebrows in the public and private sector. President of the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Nikita Usher says the government should enact and enforce regulations that would ensure that the consuming public would benefit from affordable prices.

Nikita Usher

Nikita Usher, President, B.C.C.I.

“We must be cagey on how we say the word monopoly from the stand point that it was a monopoly before in any case. All that has been done now is to create the monopoly at home if you want to use the word monopoly. I beg to differ but since you used the word monopoly. I think what is most important for us to see what is going to be the regulations to ensure that the consuming public of LPG can receive a lesser cost of what is was before. The intention is there and it is for the government now to be enacting laws and enforce that this company provides what it is meant to be, it is meant to be a lesser cost to the consuming public.”

Reporter

“But do you not see the point made that why must the Government wait fifteen years to actually gain control of such a company rather than finding the sixty million which they have been able to find for other enterprises so that Belizeans or the government rather owns the company?”

Nikita Usher

“I am not an agent of the Government and so I would not want to beg to agreement with your statement. Certainly I think that the government should be making the statement why did they refer to a PPA arrangement, a Private Sector Agreement as suppose to doing it on their own. Certainly the new regime seems to be where you have a government private sector engagement and after a few years then it is then owned by the government.”