Briceño Vows BEL Won’t Pass Higher Costs To Consumers

Belizeans are already feeling the squeeze of rising living costs, and higher electricity bills could make things even harder. But Prime Minister John Briceño says his administration will not allow Belize Electricity Limited to pass its increased power generation costs on to consumers, even though BEL is paying more for electricity than it sells it for. Instead, he says government is stepping in to keep electricity affordable and points to several measures already introduced to ease the burden on households. The question is how long government can continue absorbing that cost without passing it on to consumers.

 

Prime Minister John Briceño

“Since September first, we have doubled the monthly residential electricity GST exemption threshold from a hundred dollars to two hundred dollars, a measure reported to cover and save money for more than ninety-one thousand customers. That is more than ninety percent of the customers of BEL. We need to understand an appreciate, not necessarily agree, but BEL by law, can pass on the entire cost of electricity generation, or purchase of electricity to customers. That is in the agreement they have with the PUC. So if the prices go up they can say look the price went up by so much and the PUC, once that is agreed to, would have to approve the increase so they can operate with a positive cash flow and I think it is an eight percent rate of return they are allowed to. So with higher cost of energy and diesel, BEL has been selling electricity a lot cheaper than it cost them to acquire it. But as a responsible government, we cannot and we will never allow BEL to pass on the entire cost to our citizens.”

 

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.

 

Watch the full newscast here: