Union Rejects Doubling of BEL’s COPA Charge

The cost of keeping the lights on could become an additional source of financial pressure for Belizean households. That is the concern raised by the National Trade Union Congress of Belize, which is calling on the Public Utilities Commission to reject BEL’s proposal to increase the Cost of Power Adjustment cap, or COPA, on electricity bills from five to ten percent. The request comes as BEL faces mounting financial obligations to Mexico’s CFE. That follows the seventy-three million dollars the government put in earlier this year. In its submission to the PUC, the union argues that workers are already struggling with rising living costs, while wages have failed to keep pace with the cost of basic goods and services. Last week, the Statistical Institute of Belize reported that inflation reached four point seven percent in September, while consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in almost two and a half years. The NTUCB argues that workers cannot absorb another increase, one that the union says it is fundamentally unfair to ask consumers to pay more when, quote, the quality and reliability of the service they receive has already been compromised, end quote. The NTUCB further argues that doubling the COPA cap would undermine the consumer protection safeguards established under the PUC’s Regulatory Sandbox and maintains that BEL has not sufficiently justified the increase.

 

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