This week – all the talk has been about BEL and the string of nationwide blackouts that came on the heels of Stan Marshall’s announcement that the cash strapped company would be forced to implement power outages if it couldn’t pay for power from Mexico. Now any sampling of public opinion will tell you Belizeans call that spite and folks don’t like that, especially not from their own power company – especially when they feel it’s a foreigner fiddling with the power switch. And today at his first quarterly press conference, the Prime Minister told the media that he doesn’t much like it either.
Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
“I think it is hard not to get personal when remarks of that nature are made by a foreigner doing business in our country, who ultimately remains a guest in our country. I will content myself with saying only that those remarks were extremely unfortunate and I certainly found them offensive and insulting. I met with the CEO of BEL on Tuesday after Cabinet and I expressed to him my displeasure at Mr. Marshall’s behaviour.
I am not going to get into what he said, Mr. Marshall obviously to some extent is his boss. All I was interested in was in determining whether or not these were planned blackouts, these were being wilfully implemented in accordance with Mr. Marshall’s threats. Mr. Young assured me that that was not the case and he explained every instance of a blackout that had taken place up until that time, this was 4 to 4:30 on Tuesday evening.
Cabinet had also asked the PUC to send somebody into BEL in an effort to try to determine exactly what I was asking Mr. Young, whether these were deliberate. Mr. Young’s response that they were not in fact deliberate was verified by the PUC. Ladies and gentlemen I know that because of the way Mr. Marshall behaved, the public is extremely sceptical and I can’t fault the public for not perhaps initially wanting to accept that the blackouts so far are not deliberate.
But I do trust Mr. Lynn Young, not to the extent that didn’t as I said, attempt to get independent verification, because I think that is my responsibility, but based on what he has said, based on what the PUC has said, and based on what the Mexican Ambassador has told me, I am certainly satisfied that this is not planned.”
And while Barrow is convinced and has certified that the outages weren’t the product of any deliberate act by BEL, he says that if at some point there is evidence to show that there are deliberate interruption in the power supply, he will have an emergency House sitting to pass legislation which will empower government to reign in BEL. In the interim though, his government has asked the Mexican government to facilitate discussion with the state-owned power company CFE to see if some special rate can be worked out for power sold to Belize. Those talks begin on June 5th and will be led by special advisor in the Ministry of Finance, Manuel Esquivel.
And while government pursues that channel of diplomacy, Barrow also accepts that with soaring energy costs – an electricity rate increase may be inevitable – so he has committed that government would subsidise the light bills for the eleven thousand persons who are currently paying BEL’s social rate. The subsidy would have the effect of keeping their rate stable even if there was an overall increase in rates.
But with all this BEL trouble – which is likely to get worse – wouldn’t it be easier to just re-nationalise BEL? Social Security already owns 26% of the company and Barrow said he would be eager to increase that to 51%. But re-rationalising it? That’s another story.
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“If BEL were to be prepared to sell another amount of shareholding that would mean that Social Security and the government together would own 51%, if I have to sell my sock I would to raise the money to buy it.”
Adele Ramos, Amandala
“That’s the next question I would have asked.”
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“It would be either you buy the whole thing or nothing. Why would they voluntarily put themselves in a minority position. If they would, I tell you I don’t care what we have to do to find that money.”
Adele Ramos,
“Is the government, is your administration considering pursuing a buyback, a re-nationalization of BEL?”
Hon. Dean Barrow,
“To the extent that I just said, if they would be prepared to sell us, just enough so we would gain majority control, absolutely. If we had to buy the whole thing, I just don’t see that as being doable immediately.”
Barrow added that Fortis has indicated formally that it is not interested in holding minority interests in the power company. Barrow said that he would be willing to look at the complete re-nationalisation of BEL in the medium to long term – if revenues from oil grew significantly with the discovery of other oil fields.
