The Senate considered five bills when it met today in the National Assembly in Belmopan, but by far the most debated was the Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2007, which seeks to restore power to the Minister of Public Utilities to make bylaws – a power now vested in the Public Utilities Commission, a statutory arm of Government established in 1999 to regulate the sector.
In presenting the 2-page bill to Senators, Leader of Government Business Dickie Bradley said the amendment would enable the Minister of Public Utilities to make bylaws and would furthermore mandate the publication of final decisions of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) on tariffs, charges and fees to be made in the Government Gazette. This, Bradley said, would give those decisions the force of law.
Bradley said that the function of lawmakers in Parliament is to make laws, but under the amendment the Minister could only do so after he consults with the PUC.
“What is happening here is that the Government will make the bylaws. That is as it should have been from the outset,” he argued. “The Government must be responsible. The Government is responsible for when electricity goes up, and the Government is responsible for when electricity goes down, barring of course external factors.”
“I trust that this is not a precursor to amendments in the Telecommunications Act and Water as well,” said Senator Godwin Hulse, who represents the business sector.
Hulse commented that Bradley had really failed to convince him of the need for the amendments in the Electricity Act, but more than that, he, Hulse, was confused about the amendment, because as things now stand – even without the amendments tabled before the Senate – the PUC cannot make any bylaws without the involvement of the Minister, who must give his stamp of approval.
“I am confused and I am generally not confused. The actual legislation, Chapter 221, Section 7, Section 1, says: ‘The Commission may, with the approval of the minister, make bylaws – with the approval of the Minister, not on its own, not what it thinks up, not some commission that is out there doing things, usurping the government’s authority, with the approval of the Minister. In fact, if you go to the interpretation section of the act, it says regulations mean regulations made by the commission with the approval of the Minister,” the Senator elaborated. “I would have thought that the Public Utilities Commission, a body set up by legislation by this very assembly, staffed by highly competent, technical and administrative personnel, would be quite competent to make bylaws and go to the Minister and say these are what are proposed, do you approve?”
He said that he does not know – and Bradley had not explained – why things are being changed at this hour.
He questioned, “What is it that is happening between the PUC and the Minister? Is it that they are not getting along?”
Like Hulse, Opposition Senator Deborah McMillan believes that the amendment downgrades the power of the PUC.
“Undoubtedly, this amendment undermines, it hinders the work of the PUC essentially. As far as I am concerned, this emasculates the PUC, the people who are most qualified to regulate the public utilities sector have been rendered incompetent as far as I am concerned,” McMillan said.
She said that some crucial questions need to be asked, with respect of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill: (1) Who do you want to regulate the utilities sector? Who do we trust to regulate the utilities sector? Do we want and trust an autonomous independent authority wherein lies the expertise or do we want a Minister? (2) Why are we transferring, shifting the power? (3) In the session of the House of Representatives last Friday, the Minister of Public Utilities referred to “gray areas” and “complicated things.” Will the power transfer address those “gray areas” or will it address the “complicated things”?
Senator McMillan also referred to Government’s own energy policy, which speaks of strengthening the PUC. The amendment would achieve the exact opposite—that is, weaken the PUC, she said.
Government Senators supporting the bill were Roy Cayetano and Lisa Shoman, a recently inducted Senator who sat in her first session since she was taken on board as Senator and Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Cayetano said that the main question to answer is, who do the people hold responsible? He said that even though very few Ministers have the technical capacity in a particular area for which they are appointed, they are the ones who the people hold responsible.
“My view is, what is being set up here should have been in the first place,” he remarked. “The amendment does not take away from the power of the PUC. They still have a critical role to play. The professionals will lay the groundwork and work on the contents of the legislation. I do not see what the problem is and I have no difficulty supporting the amendment.”
Senator Shoman supported the bill, saying, “You cannot have a situation where the Minister responsible for the PUC cannot, in and of herself, make legislation.”
She said that even though the amendment is giving back the power to make bylaws to the Minister, no sensible Minister would make such bylaws without doing the necessary consultation.
Ester Ayuso Ramirez, an Opposition UDP Senator, questioned, however, why the Minister would want to consult with the same PUC that he has implied, in his justification of the bill, is not looking properly after the interests of the people.
Shoman argued that the changes in the Electricity Act would not emasculate the PUC, because they will still be able to consult with the people and advise the Minister. She added that the new requirement to have all PUC decisions published in the Gazette would simply be filling a lacuna that now exists.
“It is right and good and proper that all bylaws should be laid before the National Assembly. It is a further check and balance,” she further commented.
Trade Union Senator Rene Gomez questioned why the Minister was being given more power under the Electricity Act—a change that he sees no need for.
In wrapping up the debate on the bill, Senator Bradley said,
“We cannot have a situation in the country where it is the PUC that makes laws. All laws are made by Parliament and they delegate that authority to the relevant Ministers.”
He also said that even as things now stand, the PUC couldn’t get bylaws on the law books unless the Minister approves them. In the case of the amendment, however, if the Minister does not agree with the advice of the PUC, that is the Minister’s prerogative.
After the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, the next most debated bill was the Petroleum Revenue Management Trust Fund Bill 2007. The structure of the fund and the severity of the penalties were lauded by Senator Hulse, a strong proponent of finance reform.
In summarizing the bill, Senator Bradley noted that the funds will be deposited in a custody bank outside of Belize and that penalties for misappropriation of those funds would range from $100,000 to $500,000 in fines and/or three to five years in jail.
Bradley gave no indication how much money the fund would open with.
In his commentary on the petroleum bill, Senator Hulse pointed out that it makes provision for the House of Representatives to determine how the money would be used. An annual transfer amount would be included in the annual estimates. The petroleum fund would be audited by both the auditor general and an independent auditor, and governed by an independent oversight board, working along with an investment committee.
“This piece of legislation trumps in a big way The Finance and Audit Act—which I was an architect of. What we must ensure is that it is properly implemented, put to proper use,” Hulse said, adding that we must also get a proper share of petroleum revenues.
The Senate also considered and approved the Time Share Bill 2007, the Families and Children Amendment Bill 2007, and the Sacred Heart College Bill 2007. Bradley asked the president of the Senate to have all the bills taken through their stages forthwith—which they were.
In addition to the discussion on the bills, Senators Hulse and Gomez also commented on the 7th Actuarial Review of the Social Security Board, dated as at the end of Dec 2005.
Hulse pointed particularly to concerns in the report about the Social Security’s investment portfolio:
“The actuary is very concerned about the quality of the investment portfolio and potential losses that might have a direct incidence on the actual parameters derived in the present valuation. In the second part of the second paragraph…[he said] the development and institution of an updated investment policy will be one of the main challenges of the scheme in the near future and the investment committee should devote special effort in reassessing the strategic allocation taking into consideration the actuarial guidelines, some of which I trust will be finding its way into the new act.”
Last Friday, Prime Minister Said Musa, who holds the finance portfolio, introduced a set of amendments to the Social Security Act, but those amendments have yet to be approved by the House.
For his part, Senator Gomez expressed specific concerns over the use of Social Security funds to co-finance the National Health Insurance Scheme, as outlined in the SSB’s 7th Actuarial Review.
He noted that the SSB would pay $5 million each year, from 2006 to 2008 into the scheme, on top of the initial $25 million pumped into the project between 2001 and 2005—a financing program he said the actuary has advised against, cautioning that it was depleting the SSB’s reserves.
Gomez said that according to the actuary, the SSB’s financing of NHI should have been phased out but instead, the SSB has been providing further financing for the project.
Another money issue that was raised in the Senate today was a US$2.5 million Caribbean Development Bank loan at 2.5% interest, presented in the form of a motion, “for the modernization and strengthening of Customs and Excise Department.”
There was no objection to this loan, and in fact, Senator Hulse said that he wished the rate was that good on the billion-dollar super bond concluded earlier this year to refinance the bulk of the country’s external debt.