Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) held its Annual General Meeting on Thursday, June 20, at which the company announced that it suffered a loss of $16 million for the financial year that ended in December 2012.
At the meeting, the company confirmed dividends after booking a $37.8 million increase in shareholder equity over the two-year period January 2011 to December 2012. Shareholders will receive five cents per share.
Being the majority shareholders in BEL, the Government of Belize and Social Security Board can expect to receive approximately $2.4 million and $920,000 respectively.
During the last financial year, the company was able to pay off a $30 million debt to consumers, despite the $16 million loss. That was due to a low cost of power between 2008 and 2011. Electricity rates were also lowered from $0.441 per kilowatt hour to $0.418 per kilowatt hour.
Cost of power has increased by 27.6 percent in 2012, however, and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has approved a 16.8 percent increase in electricity rates for the start of 2013.
The PUC issued a press release today, Monday, on its final decision on the 2013 Annual Review Proceedings (ARP) by BEL. The PUC has approved a reduction in the Mean Electricity Rate from $0.4886 per kilowatt-hour to $0.4865 per kilowatt-hour. Due to the small reduction in MER, only current tariffs in the social customers’ class were adjusted. The minimum charge was reduced from $5.00 to $4.00 per month and the tariff was reduced from $0.29 per kilowatt-hour to $0.26 per kilowatt-hour.
In a press release issued by BEL, the company’s senior manager of finance and human resources, Betty Tam, was quoted as saying that, “We have managed our financial performance to be sustainable and have not required any government bailout.”
She added that, “We have managed to keep the lights on and continue to pay our loans, and in 2012, we closed a successful Series 5 Debenture Offer for $25 million, which indicates high confidence in our business.”
The company also announced that in 2012, electricity demand increased by 7.9 percent and it had 1,684 new customers.