The Tribune

IT’S summer – and the power is going out.

It’s a familiar occurrence – and one that prompted Bahamas Power and Light officials yesterday to ask for customers to “bear” with the company.

Chairman Dr Donovan Moxey said: “We certainly understand the frustration of our customers and obviously we’re asking you to bear with us. Obviously, you’re paying for a service and you’re expecting a good quality service and so what I can say is we’re going to do everything we can in order to continue to try to improve the services as best we possibly can.”

Nice words, but the company is already falling short.

For starters, the company could be more transparent about what the problems are and in their dialogue with customers.

Yesterday, Dr Moxey said the problem wasn’t load shedding – which BPL had pledged had come to an end – but said it was a “transmission and distribution event”, going on to point at a lack of funding for infrastructure upgrades. Meanwhile, the union president said that maintenance issues are the cause of outages. Well, which is it? Let’s put some detail on that “transmission and distribution event,” Dr Moxey – what actually happened and when?

Then there’s the failure of customer service. For hours on Sunday, when the power went out for many, there was no update posted to the company’s social media to let customers know what was going on and when they could expect the power to come back on.

In the replies to a previous post, many customers expressed their disappointment and anger, with no reply from the company. Post after post means customer after customer, and all of them wanting to know when the power would be coming back on – all to the apparent indifference of the company judging by its lack of response.

More customers experienced outages yesterday – but again a lack of communication to provide updates.

So you can say there’s no load shedding, BPL, you can complain about not having enough money – but it’s not good enough. Customers do indeed expect a good quality service – and that’s not just keeping the power on, but keeping the customer informed when it’s not. In both respects, BPL is failing right now.

Are things better than the long hot summer of 2019? Yes. Are they good enough? Not yet.

It seems we solve one problem – enough power generation – only to run into others. So come clean, BPL, tell us everything, and not just in vague terms. And respect your customers enough to keep them updated as they wait for the power to return.

Jab or job?

What difference will a vaccine make to your future?

On one level, of course, there is your physical protection – the reduced likelihood of hospitalisation and death.

What about your economic future, though? There is talk in the healthcare sector of mandatory vaccinations, but Rupert Roberts raised the suggestion that his food store will only hire people who are fully vaccinated.

He’s not talking about mandatory vaccinations for those already employed, but rather choosing a vaccinated candidate over an unvaccinated one to fill future vacancies.

Mr Roberts says vaccination rates among his employees are “very low”, which is disconcerting considering how supermarkets are one of the few places that have been open throughout the pandemic, and serve as a gathering point for the public as they come to shop.

The supermarket chain is also mourning the loss of a second employee, believed to have died from the virus and who works in the trucking department.

Mr Roberts points to the expected comments from Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis tomorrow, saying if Dr Minnis says only vaccinated staff can serve the public that Super Value would have to close with not enough workers having had the jab to keep going.

If Mr Roberts is thinking about such a move towards hiring only the vaccinated, you can be sure other sectors are considering the possibility too.

There are many legal discussions that will need to be held to deal with such possibilities – but for those simply facing a choice of getting the jab or not, it may just be one more factor to consider. Do you want to lose out on a job to someone else just because they are vaccinated and you are not? It’s worth thinking about.