A press release issued in St. Johns, Newfoundland on October 30th says
it all : “Fortis Earns Record $18 million (Canadian dollars) in Third
Quarter”. A look into the release shows BEL revenue for the first 9
months of 2002 soaring from $53,486,000 (Canadian) to $58,417,000 and
BECOL earnings up from $9,596,000 to $12,302,000. In fact BEL and BECOL
between them were far and away the proportionately biggest earners of
ALL the power companies owned by Fortis.

Significantly, as BEL and Mr. Young whimper on about the need for
Belizean consumers to pay more, Belize’s earnings per kwh remain
ridiculously high. A simple comparison between Fortis’s earnings and
energy returned from Belize versus the earnings and energy from Martime
Power or Canadian Niagara Power reveals that Belizeans are paying
almost three times more than Canadians for their power per GWh.. Are
Fortis asking for price rises in Canada to cover their lower earnings
from their Canadian subsidiaries? The answer is almost certainly “No”,
Because utility pricer contros do notallow them to get away with it in
Canada!

AND NOW BEL & FORTIS FURTHER SHAME BELIZE!

Now, to add to Belize’s ever sliding eco-reputation abroad, one of the
world’s top travel writers, Simon Worrall, has just published a long
and comprehensive analysis of Mollejon and Chalillo in the London
weekend Guardian.

The lengthy article is unsparing:in its criticism of the entitre hydro
project: “A proposed dam scheme in Belize threatens to destroy one of
the world’s richest natural habitats. But should the project ever have
got off the ground?”.

It is a stunning exposé of not just the damage to the wildlife and the
environment which Chalillo will cause but also an accurate account of
the dirty dealing done first to promote Mollejon and then Chalillo.

Mr. Worrall’s credentials are unchallengeable and indeed both the Prime
Minster, Said Musa, and finance supremo, Ralph Fonseca, gave him
lengthy interviews.

Here is a small excerpt from the article: “The
proposed Chalillo dam compounds and magnifies the problems that marked
the construction of an earlier, smaller dam on the Macal River in 1991.
The Mollejon dam was the result of a deal between two powerful Belizean
politicians: Ralph Fonseca, chairman of Belize Electricity Board (BEB),
and WH Courtney, acting treasurer of Belize’s other state power
company, Belize Electric Company Limited, or BECOL. BECOL produced
power.

BEB distributed it to the customer.

“In January 1991, Fonseca invited bids from international companies
to construct and operate a hydroelectric facility at Mollejon. Packed
with generous concessions, including exclusive water rights to the
Macal River, the contract was weighted in favour of the purchaser. It
was snapped up by Dominion Energy International, the North
Carolina-based power giant, for $12m. At the time of the negotiations,
Fonseca was a minister of state in the prime minister’s office (a
non-elected role), as well as chairman of the board at Belize
Electricity; he, rather than the minister of finance, signed the
tripartite deal with Dominion on behalf of the government, as well as
in his capacity as BEB chairman. ‘I ran the ministry of finance’, he
told me when I asked him if he had overreached himself.

“As soon as the Mollejon dam’s turbines began to spin in 1995, it
became clear that it could never produce the amount of power for which
it had been contracted. But under the contract signed by Fonseca,
Dominion was guaranteed $8.5m per year, whether or not the dam lit a
single light bulb. These costs were passed on to the Belizean consumer,
who ended up paying far more for their power than they should have
done.

“Two years ago, as part of the ongoing privatisation of public
utilities being urged upon it by the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank, the last portion of Belize’s electricity industry was
auctioned off. The theory behind privatisation is that, by breaking up
state monopolies, it will increase competition and lower prices. The
effect is usually the opposite.

“The man overseeing the privatisation of Belize’s economy is Ralph
Fonseca, the present minister of budget management, investment and
public utilities”.

I will skip over Mr. Worrall’s speculation about Mr. Fonseca’s
financial holdings abroad, and go on to where the article gets back to
the subject of Chalillo. Mr Worall writes: “Five
companies, including one from Taiwan, expressed interest in investing
in Belize’s electricity network when it came up for privatisation. All
balked at building a second, far larger dam on the Macal River, at
Chalillo. It made no sense economically. The cost to the environment
was too high. A Canadian company, Fortis, which owns substantial
commercial real estate holdings along the Canadian Atlantic coast,
rushed in where others feared to tread.

“Under its bullish CEO, Stan Marshall, Fortis was aggressively
expanding its operations. It had tried unsuccessfully to acquire a
monopoly over Newfoundland’s electricity industry in 1994. In Belize,
it saw an opportunity to achieve what it could not at home. Most
importantly, Fortis had no qualms about dams.

“Before a moratorium banned the building of dams of the size
envisaged on the Macal, it had built most of Newfoundland’s
hydroelectric facilities. In 1999, despite its own law that prohibited
any one investor acquiring more than a 25% stake, the Fonseca-Musa
government allowed Fortis to buy controlling interests of 65% and 95%
respectively in BECOL and BEL (Belize Electricity Limited, as the old
BEB was renamed when it was partially privatised), giving it a monopoly
over both the generation and supply of power.” Mr Worrall describes
Prime MInister, Said Musa as, “a dapper, compact man of Palestinian
origin who holds a law degree from Manchester University, who talks the
talk as well as anyone. ‘Our people suffer from poverty,’ he told me,
as we sat in his office in the capital, Belmopan. ‘We need development
in our country. And much as we want to preserve our environment for
this and future generations, we have to develop.’ When I pointed out
that there is a moratorium in Newfoundland on the size of dam that his
government is allowing Fortis to build in Belize, he grew testy.
‘Canada continues to build dams,’ he said. ‘The European countries
continue to build dams. But little Belize is not allowed to build dams?
Is that what you are telling me?'”

There is an alarming footnote in Mr Worrall’s article whcih I am sure that few Belizeans realize: “Fortis
has been given something else no company could ever hope to get in the
developed world: exclusive water rights. Fortis now effectively owns
the Macal River. It can charge farmers or fruit growers for extracting
water for irrigation. It can store and release water when it chooses.
The agreement also indemnifies Fortis against any third party damages.
If Julio Sosa’s children happen to be swimming in the river when the
sluice gates are opened and are drowned, Fortis is not liable. If there
is a dam burst and an entire village is swept away, Fortis has the
right to sell the dam to the Belizean government for $1, thereby
absolving it of all repair or decommissioning costs.”

How much more have Belizeans NOT been told?