BEL’s $73M Lifeline Still Under Discussion

As we mentioned at the top of the newscast, the government is investing seventy-three million dollars by buying shares in the company. But how far will that money go in giving BEL relief, and will it delay further increases to consumers’ electricity bills? BEL Chairman Dr. Lynn Young says it’s a discussion that is in the works.

 

Dr. Lynn Young, Chairman, BEL

“The government is the majority owner of the company and SSB owns what, thirty-one percent. The government owns close to, we have probably about five percent owned by small shareholders and the government owns the balance. I have said before, a business gets its money to operate from selling its goods and services or from its shareholders. You borrow money, but even you borrow you have to pay it back by selling your services and goods. So to the extent that the government agrees with BEL that we should try as much as possible not to increase the rates, they have been supporting BEL with loans etc. The seventy-three million, how much of it will be set off by the seventy-three million is a discussion we have to have with government. To the extent we don’t want to have to increase the rates, they may just continue to treat it as loans until the company can pay it back when we have things turn around. The plans we have in place, for example these small solar projects, if we get them on line when we expect, they could save us up to twenty-seven, twenty-eight million dollars a year.”

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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