In a fiery House of Representatives session held Friday, Belize’s Opposition Leader Tracy Panton has thrown sharp scrutiny over the Briceño administration’s controversial plan to inject $73 million in taxpayer funds into Belize Electricity Limited (BEL), demanding clarity on whether the move is a legitimate public investment or an undisclosed bailout for the struggling state-controlled utility.
Under the proposal, the government would acquire 8,138,020 convertible, redeemable preference shares at a price of $9 per share. Panton opened her critique by highlighting the government’s already overwhelming stake in BEL: the Government of Belize (GOB) holds a 66% direct shareholding, while the country’s Social Security Board (SSB) controls just over 30%, bringing total public ownership to nearly 97%. This overwhelming state control, she argued, makes the additional share purchase logically incoherent.
“How does one increase control on something they already control?” Panton questioned, pointing out that taxpayers are being asked to pour more public capital into an enterprise that already belongs almost entirely to the Belizean public.
Beyond the structural illogic of the deal, Panton challenged the $9 per share valuation, drawing direct comparisons to past pricing of the utility’s shares. She noted that BEL’s own 2005 annual report valued the company’s preference shares at just $2 apiece, and as recently as last October, the government purchased identical shares for only $1.57 each. Panton emphasized that there has been no independent third-party assessment, valuation, or public report to justify the sudden five-fold jump in share price from the 2025 purchase.
Panton further argued that the $73 million allocation aligns far more closely with covering BEL’s existing short-term debt than funding planned expansion or long-term value-creating investment. She pointed out that BEL’s publicly reported immediate outstanding obligations total approximately $69.7 million, a figure nearly identical to the proposed allocation. This debt, she explained, covers ordinary operating costs including payments owed to the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), fuel expenses, and other regular day-to-day expenditures — not capital projects that would grow the company’s value.
“It makes me think that what BEL needs is 73 million. My last check that BEL owed immediately was 69.7 million dollars; that’s for ordinary debt, and that is no investment capital. That is for monies we owe to CFE, operating costs, fuel, and essentially operating expenditure,” Panton told the House.
Closing her critique, Panton drew a clear line between the two possible justifications for the spending, emphasizing that Belizean citizens have a right to full transparency about how their tax money is being used. “An investment creates value. A bailout prevents collapse. Belizeans need to know which one this is,” she said.