Last night we told you that those approximately 14,000 consumers using between 50 and 125 kilowatt hours per month will be in for a shock when they get their next light bill, because the rate per kilowatt hour is going up by over 50%. Well that's not quite right, it's more like 75% as the rate goes up from the previous social rate of 21 cents per kilowatt hour to 38 cents per kilowatt hour.
That's the sharp downside of a promise made in the run-up to the 2003 general election when government announced that 14,000 consumers would be added to the social bracket meaning that 42% of BEL consumers would pay a subsidized rate. Well owing to increasing world fuel prices, the good times are over, and so is the subsidy. By the order of the PUC those 14,000 consumers have now been reclassified to pay the general rate.
Looking back, was it a political stunt, pulled off at the expense of the consumers/voters? Today Information Minister Godfrey Smith said it was a good run but all good things must come to an end.
Godfrey Smith, Minister of Information
"As you are aware as well some of these things arise...well certainly in relation to energy, the cost of oil internationally is a huge contributor to that. People like myself will have to try to find other avenues of trying to work with the ordinary Belizeans to try to alleviate that impact as much as possible. But yes it's a helpful thing."
Jules Vasquez,
Was it a reckless political stunt engineered by the government, obviously supported by the PUC which should be autonomous, and carried out by Fortis. Might it have been an act of complicity between those three to give a political plum which was unsustainable in the long term and now those people who were seduced by it are now feeling the aftermath of what was a reckless stunt?
Godfrey Smith,
"I will take a page from your book and use a construct that you've used when you refer to the extradition thing, there is a broad number of people on the ground who've viewed what we did then as a direct benefit to them in their pockets. We're at a stage where things are not going well. I have every confidence that eventually we will come out from that and be able to do our projects that are of social benefit. But the position remains: what we did benefited a broad cross-section of people for as long as it could have been sustained."
Jules Vasquez,
Are you saying that it was a high and we enjoyed as long as we can but the party is done and fun is done and we can no longer continue it. Is that a policy of governance because I thought that when you make governance decisions you do it for the long term, but it seems that what you are saying is that we did something that was basically a short-term hit and it could not be sustained.
Godfrey Smith,
"I didn't say that at all. That is what you have been saying. When you make a decision, like we did, whether its in relation to that or anything else you do it based on circumstances as they exist at that current point in time. Things play out which lead to changes in circumstances on the government. So I don't subscribe to your view that it was a reckless political gimmick."
The new rate went into effect at the start of July and for those using between 50 and 125-kilowatt hours per month, the change will be reflected in this month's bill. 10,000 consumers continue to pay the revised social rate of 25 cents per kilowatt-hour.