Paul Maynard
By RICARDO WELLS
Tribune Staff Reporter
rwells@tribunemedia.net
POLICE are “actively investigating” the cause of a fire at Bahamas Power & Light’s Gladstone and Fire Trail Roads sub-station, head of Police Fire Services Chief Superintendent Walter Evans said Saturday.
Bahamas Electrical Workers Union president Paul Maynard yesterday said the blaze occurred after an 11kv board overloaded and crashed.
Mr Maynard said the fire started just before noon, and “took sometime to deal with”.
He said once the fire was out, technicians immediately went to work on transferring disconnected customers over to a segment of the board that was not affected by the fire. This resulted in several other interruptions in service.
A somewhat irritated Mr Maynard said of the ordeal: “Again, we find ourselves here. I’ve been saying, and I’m sure (the Bahamian people) are tired of hearing me say it, we are dealing with old equipment that will continue to breakdown and continue to fail.
“We are operating as best we could with what we got. Once the fire was done, we had to do what was necessary to get things in a position where we could work.”
After frequent power outages and issues with equipment over the years, Mr Maynard has routinely called for more modern equipment to replace aging and flawed machinery.
In a similar circumstance last September, Mr Maynard warned that equipment at BPL had already “done all it can,” insisting then that the company had to get serious about replacing its old machines.
He stated: “This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. The boards being used for transmission and distribution have run their course.
“These types of issues will continue as long as we depend on this ancient equipment. We need to get serious about making the necessary changes and stop this shock and surprise when things break down.”
Those comments came after the fourth fire to affect BPL occurred over the course of a week. Three of those fires happened at BPL’s Clifton Pier Power Plant and the other at its Blue Hills location.
Those fires led to a statement from Progressive Liberal Party chairman, Senator Fred Mitchell, who urged the Minnis administration to do all that was necessary to facilitate meaningful reform in the energy sector.
Saturday’s outage, according to social media reports, affected customers in the south-western section of New Providence.
The Tribune understands BPL considered the fire “not serious”.
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 5 years, 2 months ago
Maynard himself is the problem. These fires will continue as long as he has a voice in the electrical workers union. Investigating insurance claims adjusters are now right when they say the frequency of BPL's fire incidents defies statistical probability. LMAO
DDK 5 years, 2 months ago
Still, they should be investigated and the findings publicized!! Do you think Government would give two hoots if payment of claims were to be denied?
hrysippus 5 years, 2 months ago
Maynard good at throwing blame around.
ohdrap4 5 years, 2 months ago
The BPL Union Choir will perform on Rawson Square:
"It only takes a spark to get the fires going..."
rawbahamian 5 years, 2 months ago
Idiot union leaders are going to cause this country to collapse and when it does, these same idiots will be sitting in first class seats leaving the country toasting each other for the destruction they created by getting the brain dead union members to support their rise to fame and the members own demise !!!
geostorm 5 years, 2 months ago
@rawbahamian, don't get me started. Just the sight of these union leaders gets me upset!
TheMadHatter 5 years, 2 months ago
Again, the real question is whether proper fire fighting equipment has been installed and enough persons trained so that those trained dont happen to be off premises at the same time - lunch, sick, vacation etc. Also whether cameras have been installed to monitor these locations. Maybe Dames can donate a few of the news ones to them?
sealice 5 years, 2 months ago
old equipment or union workers destroying public property?? Funny how this man expects people to respect them when all he can do is lie about gubmint employees and what they supposedly do...
DWW 5 years, 2 months ago
So end of 2018 when there were 4 major fires at Clifton on the same weekend, (even the same day) there was an island wide shut down for a day due to unexplained phenomenon. Coincidence you ask? Then this past weekend abaco experiences another 12 hour ( to the minute ) blackout island wide. While nassau experiences another fire. Probably just coincidence though. I find it strange that management is tight lipped but Maynard got all the Intel. I think I smell a rat
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