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| San Pedro Daily |
Wednesday, August 27,
2008 Belize's Only Daily |
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PUC at War with
BEL over
New Service Installations The Public Utilities Commission and Belize
Electricity Limited
are at war again, but this time it’s not over rates, it’s about what
are called new service installations. And as these elephants battle,
the consumers are the one being trampled underfoot. First of all, you
need to know what we mean by new service installations. The term is
used to refer to power being connected to new buildings. BEL is also
not performing line extensions or upgrades.
BEL’s position is that the PUC has set a limit of $25 million on its capital spending, and the power company has now exceeded that limit. And because installations fall within that capital spending, even if the consumers pay – as they must, BEL still classifies it as capital spending. And because the company is above the limit, it can’t spend anymore, which means that if you need power connected to your building, a line extension or a temporary connection, you’re out of luck because BEL won’t, or can’t do it. The PUC’s position is that the explanation is bogus. The regulator maintains that the cap on spending does not affect new service installation, line extensions or temporary connections. Observers who are in the know tell us that the PUC feels BEL is purposefully lending an adverse interpretation to the cap on spending, and in so doing is leveraging angry consumers who just want their power connected, against the PUC. Again, we stress that is not an official position just what we’ve picked up from talking to a number of political sources. But whatever the case, the battle continues, and it will be interesting to see if BEL capitulates tomorrow after the PUC issues a public position statement. If it does not, it is left to be seen what the PUC will do to compel BEL to honor the terms of its license. Read More Met office urges vigilance over Gustav
 We are smack in the middle of the Atlantic
Hurricane
Season and so
it’s no surprise that tonight the Met Office is telling Belizeans to
keep an eye out for Gustav, a storm churning its way in the Caribbean
Sea. The category one hurricane made landfall on the southwest
peninsula of Haiti this afternoon and while some weakening is expected
as it moves over that country, it is forecasted that Gustav will
re-intensify and may take up a more westerly instead of northwesterly
track. We spoke to Acting Chief Meteorologist Ramon Frutos this
afternoon and he told us they are monitoring the situation.Ramon Frutos, Acting Chief Meteorologist “Projections have Gustav moving towards the Northwest and the force speed is expected to decrease. However, some of the models have Gustav moving more towards the west than towards the northwest and this is a concern to Belize. For example, the European models have Gustav moving towards the Yucatan Peninsula by Sunday somewhere around the central part of the Yucatan Peninsula and it is something we must be concerned about. My message to Belizeans tonight is to continue to remain vigilant. Gustav is still some distance away from our coast. It is possible along the projected path that we have right now; the latest, Gustav will just very extreme northeastern part of our preliminary phase if it continues along that path. Conditions in the northwestern Caribbean, especially around Cuba and that there area around Cayman are very conducive to further strengthening of Gustav before it enters into the Gulf of Mexico. So it is possible that we could have a major hurricane in the northwestern Caribbean before or just at the beginning of the weekend. We will continue to monitor Gustav during tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow in the afternoon we will have a better idea of where Gustav will be headed.” Read More FIRST HIGH SCHOOL OPENS
IN CAYE CAULKER The first ever secondary school in Caye
Caulker will be inaugurated this Sunday. Ocean Academy, Non-Profit,
Community High
School was founded by educators and residents of the island village
with support from donors and fundraising events. We spoke to Vice
Principal and Co-founder Joni Miller.
Joni Miller, Vice Principal and Co-founder Ocean Academy "So the first year we are offering three classes; three years, first form, second form and what we call our bridge prep year. That’s for students who didn’t have a lot of success in standard six or who found primary school very difficult and are not quite ready to go onto first form but don’t want to go back and repeat standard six again. It’s a preparatory year where they are going to work hard on their core skills like math and English so that when they are ready to go into first form they are going to be the top students. They are going to be really strong and academically confident. The following school year we plan to add third form and then forth form. We have also had a lot of interest in the community about night school but we have been saying focus on the kids first and then we will look at night school the following year. Our first form is full; we have a class size of fifteen students for every teacher. In second form right now we have five students and we have eight students in our bridge class.” But because Ocean’s Academy is a private institution, funding for the school is provided through generous donors and charity organizations. For this reason, the academy created a website to facilitate donors and provide information about the school and the students. Joni Miller, Vice Principal and Ocean Academy "The reason we created the wed-site is because we are not funded by the government. It’s a completely private school in the sense that we are raising all the funds ourselves. The way that we finance the school is the families are asked to pay $200.00 Belize a month and the rest of the tuition comes from donors. On the web-site we have little videos of each student saying why they want to go to Ocean Academy and their photo. People can go to the web-site and make a contribution online and that’s where we’ve been getting the majority of our funding at this point.” Miller says that the institution will offer the core subjects that are a part of the Ministry of Education’s curriculum with a little added touch of the Caye Caulker lifestyle. Joni Miller, Vice Principal and Co-founder Ocean Academy “Some of the things we wanted to do at our school to make it different and exciting for our students because a lot of these students they either had given up on the hopes of going to high school or just were not interested anymore. And so some of the things we do in addition to we follow the Belize curriculum so everything that the ministry of education has for high school we offer. We also offer enrichment areas and the enrichment areas are Marine Biology in our Integrated Science class. Our goal is one lap-top for every student; right now we have twenty eight lap-tops that have been donated and hopefully more are coming. The idea is that every student must have a laptop on their desk and so the teachers will integrate the use of computers and research in their daily lessons. We have a smart board which is a very large white board and it’s an interactive computer system so the teacher can teach using the computer but all the students can see it on the wall. It is called a smart board. We also offer Spanish for native speakers as well as regular Spanish classes. Our PE program a lot of the kids are really excited about is on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we have what we call water tourism and team sports. The water tourism will be starting new week with kayaking and then they will be learning swimming strokes, life starting skill, wind surfing, sailing, snorkeling, intro to scuba all these things are a part of Caye Caulker’s economy and most likely a lot of them will be getting a job in those industries are all a part of our PE program.” The land and the building for the school were donated by Dane Dingerson. He also serves on the board as founders along with Principal Heidi Curry. Anyone wishing to assist Ocean’s Academy or need more information can log on to the website at http://www.cayecaulkerschool.com/ Read More Jamaica and Belize not interested in
proposed regional 'union'
Jamaica and Belize are not interested in the political union proposed
by Trinidad and Tobago and three OECS countries. Oscar Ramjeet The prime ministers of Jamaica, Bruce Golding, and Belize, Dean Barrow, told the Caribbean Media Corporation on Tuesday that they won't be part of the union after they had had discussions with their Trinidad and Tobago counterpart Patrick Manning.  In Belize, Barrow, after meeting
with Manning
in Belmopan, said he did
not intend to join the union, although he commended the effort, while
Golding from the outset was unsupportive of the move and said that
Jamaica will not be involved in the process. He said in a statement,
"The plan to set up a political union needs to be carefully examined
since there could be implications for the entire Caribbean Community
(CARICOM).” Meanwhile, lecturer at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus, Dr Paul Ashley, described the move as ludicrous and accused the leaders of disregarding the people of the region. Manning, and the Prime Ministers of Grenada, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines signed a Memorandum of Understanding last week for a proposed single economy by 2011, and political union by 2013. After the signing, Manning flew off to Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, and the Bahamas with his country’s Foreign Affairs Minister and Caricom Secretary General Edwin Carrington, to discuss the initiative. He later journeyed to Jamaica and Belize, with plans to visit Haiti and Suriname. Read More NOTICES
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR The
Public
Forum Meeting regarding
the South Beach Development Project has been postponed until Sept.
4th. If anyone has
any questions please e-mail the SPBA.
Hurricane Planning- Good practical advice Click
Here to Send
Letter or Notice
THOUGHT
OF THE DAY
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example Mark Twain |
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 www.grandcaribe.com debbiewade@gmail.com
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© SAN PEDRO DAILY, PO Box 45, San Pedro Town, Belize. |
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