GOB Masterminds Butane Scam!

There is total chaos in the butane industry

Belize City, September 14, 2011

The huge scam involving the sale of butane by companies who cheat consumers is now at a larger more frightening scale. It is even bigger than when the scandal was first exposed.  The scam is being officially sanctioned by the Barrow Administration, which is outrightly refusing to enforce a regulation that was signed over 200 days ago, to help protect consumers from being defrauded.

This lack of enforcement is allowing butane companies to continue their questionable practices, and could be continuing the ripping off of Belizeans.

Earlier this year, when the Barrow Administration wanted to impose its inhuman anti-squatters policy on a group of residents who built small homes on Emmanuel Street, they sent a group of hired Ministry of Works’ thugs and armed Police to tear down homes and force an eviction. When the Barrow Administration wanted businesses to pay outstanding General Sales Taxes, they sent Police to look for the alleged culprits and ordered an immediate lockup. When the Government rebuked a decision of the high court over who owns Belize Telemedia Limited, it sent Police and K9 dogs to strong arm the company. There are so many examples of the Barrow Administrative using force, at times excessive and illegal, to get its way. So why are they now refusing to force butane companies to abide by law, instead of allowing them to break the law that would protect consumers from a horrendous scam?

Not a single idea to solve the problem from Contreras

On February 21st, the inept Minister of Economic Development and Commerce, Erwin Contreras, signed into law a Statutory Instrument that should have regulated the industry. This came after a huge butane scam was exposed. The law read: “All suppliers of liquid petroleum gas are required to have a weighing instrument (a scale) at their place of business, and all motor vehicles used for delivery of LPG must also be equipped with a measuring instrument”. The regulation excited many, including UDP mouthpiece Channel 7 who boasted that “your butane company won’t be able to rip you off anymore because you’ll be able to check how much you’re getting on a scale – and that’s the law!” Not so, protection for consumers doesn’t exist under the UDP.

Contreras should been open about his intentions of taking Belizeans for fools, because since then the law has not been enforced, the UDP isn’t even budging to do so. Butane companies have continued to sell butane on property and their delivery trucks without the use of scales. Consumers continue losing out, and GOB doesn’t even care.

But the story doesn’t end there. The recent shutdown of major players in the butane industry is a glaring slap to the face of the Barrow Administration, who is acting powerless before the butane companies.  Not only have butane companies been breaking the law since February, but now they have shutdown business until they are granted a hike in prices. This has revealed how compromised Belmopan is, and exposes that because Ministers are personally and financially involved with some of the butane companies, the hands of the Government are tied.

The multinational’s lobbyist, Saldivar

And yet it gets more complex. Three of the major butane industry players, Belize Western Energy Limited, Gas Tomza and Z Gas, are accusing the Government of making the field unlevel.  Those companies claim that Government granted an increase to two smaller companies Belize Gas and Belize Western Gas Limited, while ignoring the others.

The three companies have issued a release claiming that because of Government’s unfairness, they have been forced to cease business in Belize, which has placed in jeopardy over 200 jobs and more than $10m in investment.

While those butane companies are playing hardball and crying foul, however, the BELIZE TIMES has confirmed that certain Government Ministers have seen it as an opportunity to “get in the game”. Minister of Public Service John Saldivar is a huge fan of Belize Natural Energy entering the butane industry, and had unsuccessfully lobbied for it.  But now that the companies claim to be folding under pressure, this could pave the passage for Saldivar to seal his special deal with BNE.

What all of this indicates is that some major hustling is going on in the UDP.  The Government was never serious about regulation to benefit consumers. What has been its focus is finding a way to frustrate, divide and conquer to push its agenda of crony capitalism that will only benefit UDP friends and family.

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