By now, you probably know what the PUC does: the Commission regulates the utility companies, namely BTL, BEL, and BWSL to make sure they get a fiar return on their investment, without gouging consumers.
The PUC is also a part of an organization of utility regulators from other Caribbean countries. It is called the Organization of Caribbean Utility Regulators (OOCUR), and today, they held their 16th conference here in Belize, with the PUC as their hosts.
We stopped by for day 1 of the conference, and spoke with the chairman about the shared issues and challenges that regulators around the Caribbean face. Here's what he told us:
Clayton Blackman, Chairman OOCUR
"OOCUR is really an umbrella body for all Caribbean utility regulators and as you see here it's clearly stated out. We deal with energy, communications and also water and sewage. So we have approximately 12-15 members. Some are more active than others, some are larger than others. Belize is actually hosting this conference this year and is a very active member. What we actually do is that we try to bring a balance between the utility providers and the customers. So we don't want the utility providers not to be making a profit and we want more than anything else which is quality service standards to be provided by these utilities. Customers more than anything else should be at our first and foremost responsibility. We don't want them to be taken advantage of. We want them to have good quality services. So therefore we act as a buffer between both. There are many challenges. The regulator should be very independent and when I mean independent, I mean totally independent."
"What we found is that many times government try to manipulate or take hold of the regulators and as I say the way it should be "independent," because as I said we need to be able to work with government in order to ensure that the citizenry are well taken care of as far as services is concerned. So what we did is that we partnered with the utility professionals, which is CARILEC and we also partnered with Caricom and together with the government, the utilities and the regulators - what we have done is that we have actually tries to bring them together. So that partnership started off in Florida where there was a Cari-conference and they had a round table discussion. Similarly there is a round table discussion that is going on presently as we speak. Presently Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Belize are undertaking rate reviews. This is very ticklish, is very sensitive because you don't want to set rates that the utilities would not be able to make money. You don't want to set rates that they customers wouldn't be able to pay. So then the different models that are utilized tend to set in place the appropriate tariff that customers must pay. I think that each country is really challenge as far as that is concerned, because it's done differently and I applaud Jamaica for the model that Jamaica is using."
The conference continues tomorrow, and ends on Friday.
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