The public bickering between the Public Utilities Commission and Belize Electricity Limited has tonight become a war...of words. Today the PUC issued the longest press release we have ever seen; it is 6 pages, two thousand words long. But it is meaty and provocative, basically accusing the power company of cooking the numbers and using dubious accounting practices.
The PUC says that BEL is misrepresenting the figures when it claims its revenues will only amount to $112 million for the year – which is $33 million less than it’s projected to make. And according to BEL, that’s because of corrections applied by the PUC. But according to the PUC, BEL is mis-stating its revenues by $36 million and revenues are in fact $3 million over their projected target. And so instead of having a liquidity crisis, the PUC says BEL has $36.2 million at hand. And the PUC says it knows this by calculating revenues from the company’s total sales in kilowatt hours and from its business tax payments.
And so what does it all mean? Well according to the PUC, BEL’s liquidity crisis isn’t real. The PUC statement concludes that, quote: “BEL is still very profitable and is in a better liquidity position than it was” at this time last year.” That’s basically calling out the country’s largest utility and today a BEL spokespersons would only say that the company is appalled at the statement from the PUC which should be impartial and it is reviewing its position with its attorneys.
