One Hundred Million Dollars in Outstanding Bill Payments to B.E.L

B.E.L. Chairman Andrew Marshalleck also addressed queries about potential electricity price hikes and the operational costs B.E.L. incurs in supplying electricity to consumers.

 

Andrew Marshalleck, Chairman, Belize Electricity Limited

“The entire five year plan and by the way we have maintained rates from pre-covid right through to today, there have been no rate increase. B.E.L. has been bearing those rate increases on behalf of the public where it has nearly depleted our cash resources. The amount that consumers owe B.E.L. for the electricity we have provided, this year alone is projected to be a hundred million dollars. B.E.L. has been bearing that for consumers. I see people talking about B.E.L. wanting to profit from consumers, well far from it. You have been using B.E.L. resources for the electricity you are currently using. The price for power from C.F.E. during all these cuts went as high as a dollar and five cents per kilowatt hour while we are charging you forty cents for it. Who you think is paying all the difference?”

 

Reporter

“We are going to pay it back later.”

 

Andrew Marshalleck

“For now, who has to pay it back now? Who has to find it now? Those bills have to be settled every month. I don’t get to wait, to tell C.F.E. wait until the consumer gives me. I have to pay it and then I get it down the road from you through a reasonable rate. But the entire business plan for B.E.L. was premise on keeping rates stable because we see that as critical in this environment. We want to help consumers. We are not working against consumers. We are championing the cause of consumers we want to keep rates stable and anchoring prices creates a downward pressure on inflation. But in order to achieve that there is only one way to do that in a financially sustainable way. We have been saying this for the past two years and it goes unnoticed apparently. We can only keep doing that if you introduce to the system cheaper power of generation. That means you need to give me power I can buy at less than that forty cents so that I can supply the forty cents. And then we take the difference between the two and I can start brining down all the excess I have had to bare. That is how it works.”