  Over the last few days San Pedro, as well as the rest of the country, has been plagued with power outages. These outages have affected businesses and homes and in some cases created great losses. San Pedro's power outages were not directly related to Belize's power outages, explained Neville Samuels, BEL public relations officer. According to Mr. Samuels, during this time of year consumption is high. A main generator in Belize City failed and because we are in the dry season the hydroelectric plant could not supply the country with enough energy. To add to an already bad situation, Samuels said, a smaller generator that was being used also had some problems. Mean while, in San Pedro, a generator was taken to Belize City for maintenance and was brought back to San Pedro on Friday, May 15th. When it arrived in San Pedro it did not function properly. In an effort to try to continue repairs on the generator there were several power outages. According to the San Pedro BEL office, there was no official schedule for these outages. On Monday, May 18th, BEL received three container units which had been ordered a long time ago. One of the contained units was shipped to San Pedro and was installed and functional by noon on May 19th. On May 19th BEL resumed the supply of electricity to the entire country. Editors Note: The submarine cable which will provide San Pedro with electricity from mainland Belize, has already been laid. Poles are being installed in the south of the island and in Bomba Village, Mascal. The poles should be connected to the substation in town within two weeks. The entire project should be finished and functional in the middle of July. After San Pedro is hooked up to mainland energy supply, the diesel generators, presently in use, will remain on the island as back up. Mr. Samuels assured the Sun that San Pedro wouldn't be needing any back up supply after the submarine cable is functional. We were also told that BEL is working hard to centralize the company. Offices throughout the country will be reorganized and BEL will work towards providing convenient and efficient service to all its customers. Were looking forward to it.
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