The executive chairman of the Belize Electricity Limited (BEL), Lynn Young, has acknowledged that the company owes millions of dollars to Mexico’s state-owned energy supplier, CFE.
Young in an interview with Greater Belize Media television, said that the company has been able to meet some of its financial obligations with the assistance of the John Briceño administration. He said that in early January this year, the debt was estimated at BDZ$45 million (One Belize dollar=US$0.49 cents) but that the figure has declined to about BDZ$30 million.
‘We have been in conversation with them continuously and we have been bringing it down this year, with the help of the government. It is pretty straightforward, the cost of power for many months have been higher than the electricity rate.’
Young said that to give an example, the company collects about six million dollars a week for all the revenue and the diesel alone is about three million dollars a week right now.
‘So, we have to prioritise paying CFE, paying Hydro Belize, the diesel and of course we have employees we have to pay. We have contractors to pay. So it boils down to us using up all the resources and that is how the company ended up in that position. We have to bring down the cost of power.
‘I think the COPA adjustment will help, but its not, for example last month alone the extra cost was like four and a half cents per kWh hour, the COPA is just one and a half cents. So we will have to find that extra three cents. For that month, we are probably short about five million dollars and again, open, the government has been assisting us in meeting some of these bills.’
Earlier this month, BEL implemented a new Cost of Power Adjustment (COPA), increasing electricity charges by 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour on bills issued in August 2026. The adjustment follows a final decision by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and applies to customers across Belize, including San Pedro, except vulnerable households receiving the Social Rate.
Young said that an increasingly unreliable supply from across the border and limited generating capacity at home are also fueling the crisis.
‘Nobody could have known that CFE would be having problems. I did not expect that either because it is such a big system and they are an energy rich country. So, nobody could have predicted that.
‘So to the extent that we relied on CFE heavily, I could understand why people made that decision. Again, it has been a while since we added generation to our system, it might have looked like a good decision back then because CFE was cheap and reliable, but now when CFE is not working.
Young said decisions are made based on the available information, adding ‘ we have to look forward and move forward with what we have now’.
Belize is still to take advantage of a BDZ$77 million solar project to strengthen the national power supply, but the funding remains on hold. The Briceño administration signed the agreement with Saudi Arabia in 2023, and Public Utilities Minister Michel Chebat says the deal must first clear a lengthy Saudi approval process.
‘I think government has undertaken huge projects over the last seven years and we have successfully implemented them. Unfortunately, the Saudi’s have a longer procurement process and more conditions you have to fulfill.
‘As a matter of fact, I think one of their conditions is that you have to use Saudi engineers for many aspects of this project. So that is a little more involved. But I can assure you that we have our thumbs on this and we are pushing it as fast as we can,’he added.