Government orders B.W.S. to roll back proposed rate hikes

What a difference majority ownership makes. Barely twenty-four hours after Belize Water Services Limited announced its intention to seek rate hikes of almost nine percent, the company’s new ownerCthe Government of BelizeCsaid “nuttin like dat”. The turnabout was decreed by Cabinet today and conveyed to the public in its regular post meeting press release. As to how the company would make up for the “lost” revenue, the release only said that that “the Government and Belize Water Services Limited have agreed to consider other alternatives to meet the company’s targets.” Sources in B.W.S. indicate that among those possible alternatives are the extension of the company’s exclusive licenseCwhich now has about twenty years left to runCin addition to contracts for running new rural water systems. Without any new revenue streams the company may lose up to two million dollars a year. That kind of loss may be acceptable to Belmopan with its eighty-two percent of the shares, but is sure to turn off the eighteen percent minority, as well as prospective buyers like B.W.S. employees who have negotiated a thirty-five million dollar loan from Social Security in the hope of purchasing fifty-one percent of the company. As for why B.W.S. management bothered to seek an increase from the P.U.C. in the first place, the consensus seems to be that the utility may have been going through the motions in order to fulfil its responsibility to small shareholders. The theatrics of a concerned government coming to the public’s rescue may also have played a role.