B.E.L. says it’s broke, not so says P.U.C.
It is not only rice farmers that are complaining, they are joined by the Belize Electricity Limited that is saying it is broke. In the fight between the two elephants the utility company says that the Public Utilities Commission retroactively applied charges against it amounting to near thirty-six million dollars which has caused a cash flow problem. As a result, B.E.L. says it can no longer continue the practice of subsidizing new connections for customers. B.E.L.’s C.E.O. Lynn Young says that the company has lost its four and a half million dollar overdraft facility from FirstCaribbean Bank and its five million dollar overdraft from Scotiabank is also in jeopardy. But the P.U.C.’s Chairman John Avery says that B.E.L. has nothing to complain about and their request for an injunction against the P.U.C.’s Order of Compliance issued on Tuesday is baseless.
John Avery, Chairman Public Utilities Commission
“It’s not simply a matter of just adhering to conditions of the license. They are denying consumer, electricity services and in fact that is their whole—that is their sole purpose for existence; to provide consumers of this country with electrical energy at fair rates with some acceptable amount of reliability. They have been denying customers electricity services, people who have applied for services. We felt we had to do something to correct that situation. What the law allows us to do is to issue an order. There are no penalties we can impose on B.E.L. at this time.”
“B.E.L. had applied for an injunction to prevent us or to restrain us from issuing the order. B.E.L. has been trying to say, basically, the order stems from our final decision. But as we argued successfully in the court, the two are unrelated. Based on that argument, the court did not uphold B.E.L.’s application for the injunction.”
Jose Sanchez
“Do you see the current relationship with B.E.L. as one coming from the fact that they did not get their rate increase? Is that the actual problem?”
John Avery
“I’m not sure you mean the current relation. I can tell you that, basically, B.E.L. has been telling us and everyone who would care to listen that our final decision has forced them into a position that they can’t do certain things. We are not of a similar opinion. B.E.L., basically, has been somewhat dishonest in the public statements they’ve been making. One of their excuses they’ve used the most in denying service to customers and not doing certain things they’ve committed to doing is that we have limited—we have placed a limit on their capital investments.”
Avery says that B.EL. currently has over eight million dollars that it can use to continue its services. However, B.E.L.’s Chairman says that in addition to the government writing a letter of credit on B.E.L.’s behalf to the Commission Federales Electricidad in Mexico; the company has used those savings to pay for power bought from Mexico.
