So Briceno used the opportunity to point the finger at them, and to explain what his government has been trying to do to rectify the problem:

John Briceno, Prime Minister
"I went on a private visit to Mexico, but whilst when I was on my way, I figured, maybe I tried to get a hold of him to the president. We got along very well, and hoping to see if he can help us to stop the load shedding in Belize."

"But I think that Mr. Mencias rightly pointed out, this is something that was, the seed was planted 10 years ago, and the previous government did nothing. We have been doing something. We have managed to convince the Saudis to lend us $72 million to do a 60-megawatt solar plant."

"But this is not something that, okay, here's $72 million, nobody gives that U.S. There's a whole process we have to do. It's a huge bureaucracy that the Saudis have. And so we have been working with them and one of the Saudi companies that will be able to come in to build the first 20 megawatt. Mr. Mencias, explained to us, he said, listen, the grid as it is can't hold a 60 -megawatt plant all in one spot. So we need to break it up in three, three 20-megawatt plants. So the first one is going to be built by Bomba."

"And from what the reports I got, we expect that that's supposed to be commissioned by July, August of next year. We have been working with the World Bank. We are borrowing about $100 million to be able to set up a battery bank."

"And what's a battery bank? Well, what is it? Is that with this battery bank that there are certain times when CFE's energy goes to two, three cents a kilowatt, like around two o 'clock, three o 'clock, four o 'clock in the morning when there's not hardly any use for this energy."

"So we could buy two or three cents, store it in these battery banks, and then put it on into the grid or sell it onto the grid with our hopes to be able to, if not maintain the price, at least to maintain the price or hopefully with time to be able to reduce the price. So a lot of work has been coming along. We just set up the RFP process. The RFP process is the RFP procurement process now. With that now in place, it has been accepted by the PUC, by BEL, and also by the MCC, the Millennium Challenge Corporation."

"The Millennium Challenge Corporation, remember they're giving us a grant of $125 million. And of that, 20% of that $125 million will be invested in energy, in improving the technology, improving the grid."

"And a part of that is we're going to use a part of that money to help us to finance the battery storage bank that we're working on. Now that RFP process has been approved by the cabinet. Now that that is in place, anybody that has a good business plan. that can show that they have access to the technology and that can show access to the funding. They can come in and put their bid to be able to produce energy for the plant."

But he says that the Mexican president has agreed to help us by setting up a meeting in Cancun with the head of CFE.

John Briceno, Prime Minister
"The president, what I can say at this moment is that we had a successful meeting and we had about a two -hour meeting and what he is doing now for Belize is that he will be in Cancun on Saturday and the head of the CFE will be in Cancun because every two weeks he comes to the president to take a first look at the work with the Tren Maya and so he will be here on Friday and Saturday, five o 'clock he will be arriving in Cancun and having a meeting with all the key technical people."

"He will be arranging a meeting with me and I have already invited BEL to join me to meet with the people from CFE to see what we can do to be able to cut out the roll out of the black outs."

Reporter
"In your view, has BEL failed in its duties to provide sufficient power to Belizean people?"

John Briceno, Prime Minister
"Not necessarily and I say this because BEL's mandate is transmission and distribution and I know that in many instances BEL was trying to also do energy to produce energy but that's not their mandate. What has failed is the process previously in the previous government with the PUC and I know the PUC and the BEL have always been having this struggle and my message to both of them has been, listen we have to stop this foolishness and we need to be able to work together and I believe that we are seeing that now the PUC, BEL and the Ministry of Energy all have to be able to work together so on Saturday after the funeral for the late Honorable Michael Espat then I'll have to be able to fly to Cancun to be able to meet with AMLO and his officials from CFE to see how they can be able to stop the roll outs or the black outs in Belize."

"As the CEO of BEL has explained, we have two engines that are going to be commissioned, one supposed to be this week, which is about 30 megawatts, and once we do that then we could be able to hold our own. Fortunately we had already bought a 21 megawatts that is already stationed in San Pedro that should be commissioned by the end of the month."

"Once we have that, that will give us a capacity of about 51 megawatts of electricity. It means then that if CFE would need to cut Belize, these generators could take over without anybody losing electricity. And then once CFE then can provide back again to us and we shut down these engines and get from Mexico."

And if you're wondering whether the PM is affected, he reassured the public that he also experiences the blackouts, since, like most, he doesn't have a generator.