So, in our headlines you heard about government's big plan to acquire all of Fortis's energy sector assets in Belize. Reports say it will close close to 300 million Belize dollars.
But, now that government will own or partly own the dams - can that help reduce the cost of power for BEL?
That utility is operating at a loss and its debt is mounting. And it's gotten that bad simply because they are selling electricity to consumers cheaper than they are buying it from Mexico. The PM discussed this difficulty today and the attention his government will now have to give BEL to turn it around:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"For about a year now, I have become actively involved in trying to get things going between both both companies., between the PUC and BEL. And now they have a much better working relationship. Just, I think about a week or so, BEL wrote a letter to PUC stating that there's an emergency in energy. The projections for energy is not going. It's it's very it's right borderline. And so they want, they want us to declare that there's an emergency situation. PUC has taken that and then discussed it. And then they have gone to the to Minister Chebat, as the Minister responsible for public utilities and to say that we agree and that want to go with solar."
Those wanting to be heard on BWS's request for a 20% increase in rates can attend their public consultation tomorrow night at 6:00 at the Biltmore.
