Pay More for Light After Load Shedding? NTUCB Says That’s Not Fair
The National Trade Union Congress of Belize (NTUCB) is urging the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to turn down Belize Electricity Limited’s request to double the Cost of Power Adjustment (COPA) cap from 5 per cent to 10 per cent.
The union made its case in a written submission to the PUC as part of the commission’s public consultation on the request.
The NTUCB says doubling the cap could vary the mean electricity rate by up to $0.0301 per kilowatt-hour. It argues that working families cannot absorb it.
“Belizean workers and their families are already struggling under an unsustainable cost of living.”
The union says wages have not kept pace with prices and that households are already choosing between electricity, food and other essentials. It adds that persistently high fuel prices raise freight costs, which show up in the price of nearly everything. Higher electricity rates would add to that, it says, because businesses would pass on their costs to consumers.
The NTUCB also points to BEL’s own reasoning. The union says BEL acknowledges its request comes partly from its continued reliance on temporary local generation to reduce the risk of load shedding tied to Mexico’s Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE). The union says the public has already lived through load shedding.
“It is fundamentally unfair to ask consumers to pay more for electricity through an increased COPA cap when the quality and reliability of the service they receive have already been compromised.”
The union says the COPA was set up under a PUC Regulatory Sandbox meant to include “consumer protection safeguards”, and that doubling the cap goes against that purpose. It says the current 5 per cent cap came after careful consideration and that BEL has not shown why it should be doubled. High electricity prices in Mexico and lower-than-expected hydroelectric generation, it says, are risks BEL should handle within the existing cap.
