And, in other utility news, the Chairman of BTL's far more profitable sister utility, BEL appeared on Uncut.
Host Jules Vasquez asked him about the pledge the Minster of Utilities made the week before to ask Cabinet to consider introducing an environmental charge to Fortis owned BECOL for the use of the river to produce hydro electricity - which it then sells to BEL. He says that makes no sense to him since the cost will be passed through:
Jules Vasquez "It is our nature resource, a foreign company is harnessing this natural resource and selling it us in US dollars to that we are buying energy from them for our own river. From a nationalist perspective, one has to say you can't the use our river to sell we our own energy in US dollars."
Andrew Marshalleck, SC - Chairman, BEL "Well they can, what's the point of driving up the cost and me charging you the cost telling you give it back to me?"
Jules Vasquez "Agreed but there is inherently an injustice in this."
Andrew Marshalleck "What it is there's always been a national imperative to keep the cost of energy low. You're talking about introducing a charge that would directly impact the cost of supplying energy and visiting that on the larger economy."
Jules Vasquez "You can change the regulatory legislation to say this is not a charge you can pass through, you have to pay for the river if you're using it and Zeta and Crystal, all those people are using our natural resource and monetizing it have to pay, that's just a basic principle."
Andrew Marshalleck "Yes and so to do you when you use energy to run your run your TV show, you have to pay your light bill, the idea behind keeping the light bill low, is to save you the extra cost but if you want jack up the cost on everybody, the jack it up. If you have a solar panel on your roof top, do you then have a charge for the sunshine that comes that you harness energy from? If you have a wind turbine, do you pass for the breeze that passes or is it just for the movement of water we will charge for?"
Jules Vasquez "Obviously the water as a natural resource has different physical properties because it's so finite. It's such a finite resource and it's so precious."
Andrew Marshalleck "But the water is not being used, all I do is saddle it to the left and it comes back to the right."
Jules Vasquez "It is being used by nature sir, do you have no heart? You only see dollar signs?"
Andrew Marshalleck "In generating electricity, the water is not consume, the movement of it, the energy for the movement of it."
Jules Vasquez "The entire basin has been despoiled by the diversion of this water, scarlet macaws have had to leave their homes."
Andrew Marshalleck "Yes and I've heard they have nice new ones."
Marshalleck says BTL currently woes BECOL millions of dollars because t cannot get its hands on foreign exchange.
Jules also asked Marshalleck about the politically appointed members fo the Board of Directors. They are the government appointees and the ruling party always uses these appointments to reward its friends. They get a prestigious post with a chunky monthly stipend - and they get to play watchdog on behalf of the ruling administration. We asked f they are tying to implement Plan Belize on BEL:
Jules Vasquez "You have my good friends Anthony Sylvester, you have Wendy on the board, you have Emilio Zabaneh on the board, these people's primary considerations are political, they are there because they are big PUP and the same happened with the previous board under the UDP. I'm saying this is the same old story, does it under mind the cooperate governance of the largest company in the country?"
Andrew Marshalleck "Well it shouldn't, this is exactly the struggles that you always have because there's always this pressure to impose Plan Belize on BEL. Now BEL has a business plan which it considers and approves in a very serious way every year, the 5 year plan is in place. So the idea is to coordinate the business with Plan Belize but you can't replace the business plan with Plan Belize because then we would be advocating our responsibilities to the company and consumers. It's a balance that you have to strive for. The notion that a politician will come sit appoint people to the board and all of a sudden BEL will run in a different way is really a foolish one, it's a well organized company and it has well developed polices over very many years with a lot of thinking gone into it and it also has the supervision of the 1/3 external shareholder, all of it acts on checks on those kind of abuses happening in there."
Marshalleck also spoke as Chairman of the Government Appointed Commission of Inquiry into the Sale of Government Assets.
He's looking at the fire sale presided over the the last government when it was leaving Belmopan - but we asked abut the chronic problem:
Jules Vasquez "It is clear that people in government, whether PUP or UDP feel that those assets are theirs, their not the people's assets, they are for the politicians to lord over and decide who gets what."
Andrew Marshalleck "That's exactly what the sale of motor vehicles demonstrated, that politicians lorded over and decided who gets what and for how much but that said, the law was changed back in 2008 when the finance and audit act reform act was introduced and that couple with financial orders mandates that these sales because procurement, some people in narrow sense refer to procurement as just purchases but the purchase of a good the using over it's useful life and then it's disposal at the end after it has been used up, all comes within the ambit of procurement, so that the sale at the end of useful life is a part of parcel of your procurement process but when you read these legislation they all talk about the procurement of goods and services or sales, so they seem to govern both purchase and sale of government assets and the procedure for doing this is through tendering, open tenders, selected tenders, limit tenders in accordance with the act has been completely ignored. It's not followed at all."
Jules Vasquez "It's a joke."
Andrew Marshalleck "Well it's more than that because the law was emended to change the breach of the finance and audit reform act into a criminal offense, so what you're looking at is... I ran a joke with a friend telling him the highest crime area in Belize isn't South side Belize City, it's getting a bad rep, it's really Belmopan."
Jules Vasquez "So then what will your report recommend, what will it entail?"
Andrew Marshalleck "We will recommend that the finance and audit act be amended to specifically promulgate proper regulations governing sales in greater details and these sales will have to be subject to regular audits, the audits will have to be quarterly and then reports go to the house and then the national assembly make sure these things are followed but to be frank with you Jules, that's what should be happening now."
Uncut repeats on Sunday on Channel 7.
