In December 2011, we told you that the Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) had applied to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for a 3.4% reduction in electricity tariffs. The PUC has not yet issued a decision; however, Prime Minister Dean Barrow said in his New Year’s Message that as soon as the PUC decision is out, government will amend the laws to make the rate decrease effective the following day.
BEL’s rate application is for the Full Tariff Period (FTP) spanning July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2016, and the rates would normally become effective on July 1.
Barrow said, however, “The ease to the consumer, the ease in the cost of living, the ease to business and industry and agriculture, cannot wait.”
The PUC decision, he said, is expected at the end of this month; Barrow said that “…government will amend the law to implement from the very next day, February 1, 2012, this historic decrease in what Belizeans pay for electricity.”
He also said that the PUC may even reduce the rate more than BEL, now a state-owned utility, has requested.
In mid-November, BEL chairman Rodwell Williams, SC, said that a new agreement for the purchase of power from the state-owned Mexican company, Comisión Federal de Electridad (CFE), BEL’s primary source of power, is already in effect, and it gives BEL a 6% reduction in rates.
Barrow also spoke of other tidings to come in the New Year, such as the plan to write off 780 mortgages held by the Belize Social Security Board. He said that government will purchase all mortgages of $50,000 and under, owned by SSB, for an estimated amount of $17 million. Forgiving all loan obligations, said Barrow, will mean putting money in the hands of borrowers to spend.
This year, 2012, is an election year, and apart from the March municipal elections, Prime Minister Barrow has also signaled that general elections could be held this year, 2012.
He also said that every surveyor has been engaged in surveying 4,709 acres of land that the Ministry of Natural Resources is to parcel out to first time land owners.