The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

The Government was yesterday urged to “do a Margaret Thatcher” on the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) and its workforce, a former Board member telling Tribune Business this was “the only way” to slash its $12 million annual overtime bill.

Outspoken Superwash president, Dionisio D’Aguilar, said BEC required fundamental changes to its structure and internal culture if it was to make inroads into its overtime costs, but this was likely to run into heavy resistance from its staff and their two trade unions.

Arguing that “labour has a gun to BEC’s head” through the workforce’s ability to strike and cut-off New Providence’s power supply, Mr D’Aguilar said the Government needed to adopt a similar attitude to the former UK prime minister when it came to seeing through tough, but necessary reforms.

And, if the Government was unwilling to do so, the businessman said it should privatise BEC and place it in the hands of a company able to make the changes.

Suggesting that BEC managers be given “financial incentives” to ensure that projects came in on time, and on budget, with overtime minimised, Mr D’Aguilar said sheer workload meant it was impossible for those at the Corporation’s head to micro-manage everything that was going on.

“The overtime issue is an extremely difficult cookie for BEC to crack,” Mr D’Aguilar told Tribune Business. “I don’t think they know how to crack it. It’s not as easy as you think, and I don’t know how they’re going to do it unless they change the way BEC does business.

“If you’re a manager, or senior manager such as Kevin Basden [general manager], you can’t be on every project as it’s in motion. You can’t check all of them. You just go with the flow, and there’s no incentive to say we should go faster and improve efficiency.

“Labour has a gun to BEC’s head, and if you say to them they can’t work overtime and a key generator goes off, they will say they can’t start repairing it until 9am the following morning because there’s no overtime. Power will be off longer, and consumers will be screaming at you.”

However, Stephano Greene, head of the Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU), the union that represents BEC line staff, indicated to Tribune Business yesterday that it was prepared to work with the Corporation on reducing overtime.

Still, Mr D’Aguilar said there was a long check-list of reforms to cross off before BEC could make serious inroads into its overtime bill, which runs at about $1 million each month.

“I don’t think anyone has a solution to this problem, and I don’t think there’s any way currently unless you totally change the approach,” he added.

“You cannot expect Mr Basden to reduce overtime when there’s no financial incentive for anyone in the organisation to reduce overtime.”

Mr D’Aguilar said a costing and budgeting system should be implemented, where BEC managers received bonuses for bringing projects in on time and on budget.

“But if you push too hard, the line staff will push back and say they are not working under these conditions,” Mr D’Aguilar said.

“The staff of BEC hold the country hostage. If you don’t give them what they want, they will go on strike and shut generators down.

“It’s very, very hard to deal with that, so they push for and get salary rises, and push for and get overtime, and no one has the testicular fortitude to tell them no.

“The only solution is to privatise BEC,” he added. “The Government does not know how to deal with it. You have to change the philosophy, change the structure and stare them down. Government has to do a Margaret Thatcher on them. That’s the only way to change.”

If such an approach was considered, where reform was rammed through despite industrial action and strikes, Mr D’Aguilar said that given BEC’s power monopoly action would have to be taken to ensure the Bahamas was “not held hostage” by power blackouts.

“With BEC, the more radical the changes need to be, the more resistance you’re going to get from the staff,” he added. “It is what it is.”