George Hardie's Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, located in the Corozal Free Zone, has decided to go public with its dispute with the Electricity company. The hotel owners are disputing 328 thousand dollars in arrears which BEL says they owe for energy consumption over the past 15 months during which time they've been closed due to the COVID pandemic.

We've seen 2 emails which the management of the Hotel and Casino wrote, one to the minister of public utilities, and the other to the chairman of BEL's Board of Directors.

In the correspondence sent to the Minister, Hardie declares, quote, "BEL says we owe $328,000, and I have already paid $140,000 in the last few months, and have been closed for the past 15 months. I am trying to find out if the charges are fair. In doing so, I seem to have upset Mr. Mencias, BEL's CEO, [who] has now threatened to shut off the few lights we have for security tomorrow. With the investment we have done for Belize, I think we are entitled to a little courtesy and a real explanation… We are paying BEL $20,000 a month with no income and not a nickel from the COVID relief" End quote.

Hardie even goes as far as to ask for an intervention from the Minister to the Prime Minister and to Andrew Marshalleck, the Chairman of BEL's Board.

Then, in an email sent to Chairman Marshalleck, George Hardie Senior pleads his case by pointing out that in the 15 years that their Hotel and Casino has been operational, they have employed 230 employees, and they have paid out nearly 56 million dollars in wages. He also provided a detailed breakdown of their payments to BEL from 2006 to 2020 for electricity consumption totaling almost 20 million dollars.

Hardie says quote, "Our electricity bill.. has been over 1 million dollars a year plus GST. I doubt there are any businesses in Belize that can overcome the size of the charges, plus a severe competitive disadvantage.

BEL now claims we owe them 328 thousand dollars and sent us a letter Thursday notifying us [that] our electricity will be shut off on Friday, July 16th. This will leave our property defenseless and cause significant internal damage…

We were ordered to close on March 21, 2020, and have been closed ever since with no income... After closing, we immediately shut down over 95% of our electricity usage… so, we were started to receive bills between 13 thousand dollars to 18 thousand dollars a month for that…

As a major investor in Belize, I am asking that I be given the opportunity to meet [with] the Board and get answers to my questions. If the charges are legitimate, we will pay them, but we have a right to know." End quote.

But, while this one customer is complaining about their astronomical light bill, we BEL says it's grappling with a massive 40 million dollars in total arrears that its entire customer base owes them.

We understand that over the past 15 months, the company has decided to take a softer policy approach to work with Belizeans who are experiencing the hardship of the pandemic. For that time, they have stopped disconnecting customers who have arrears and can't pay. Instead, they have tried to gently nudge those who owe them to enter into a payment plan. The company says that it only cuts off in extreme circumstances.