And in government news...
The House of Representatives meets on Friday - but looking at the Orders of the Day which have been circulated - we didn't see anything urgent enough to force the government to call a meeting. So we started digging to find out what's really on the agenda - and found that there's a big move afoot with BEL. Reports are the government plans to buy Fortis Cayman's 33% holding in the utility. Government presently owns 31% and Social Security owns 32%.
Of course, this raises two questions: first, how much will it cost government - slash - taxpayers - and how will they recover the investment? Because, BEL is currently operating at a loss - which went as high as 9.7 million dollars last year. Second, what will happen to the three hydroelectric dams owned by Fortis Belize - which sell energy to BEL?
Regarding the price, in 2015, the Barrow Administration paid Fortis a cash settlement of US$35 million dollars when they returned 33.3% of BEL's shares to them. At the time it was said that those shares were worth over a 100 million Belize dollars.
We'll keep following the story.
