Miller: BEC has stopped payment plans for electricity

Leslie Miller

As of Wednesday, January 20, 2016

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Electricity Corporation has reportedly “stopped payment plans” for overdue electricity accounts resulting in “hundreds” of persons being disconnected since November, according to former BEC Executive Chairman Leslie Miller.

Speaking with The Tribune, Mr Miller called the new BEC board of directors “clueless” and accused management of “not having compassion” for thousands of Bahamians who are “suffering” from high electricity bills.

BEC’s new board was appointed in November 2015, in preparation for American company PowerSecure International taking over as the new management company.

The old board was dismantled and Mr Miller was transferred to the Water and Sewerage Corporation where he is currently chairman.

“In November and December as soon as the old board was out, they began disconnecting people. This is so wrong because people are suffering. People were laid off from Baha Mar and can’t pay their bills so to turn off the electricity during the holidays is vicious,” Mr Miller said.

“We made deals with persons when we were at the corporation for them to make payments but all that has stopped. There are no more payment arrangements, that (decision) is going to affect thousands of persons. It is not fair. The new board is clueless, they are not there full-time, they do not know about the intricacies of BEC. Not one single person knows what BEC is about. There are no engineers on our board, just financial people. So they are only concerned about the bottom line.”

Mr Miller also said that overtime payments at BEC “doubled” in November and December 2015 and some workers took home as much as $6,000 per month.

“I heard that someone even took home $8,000,” Mr Miller claimed.

“They couldn’t wait for me to leave so they can have a party and things can go back to normal. So the outrageous overtime started again right in time for them to buy Christmas gifts for their families. BEC is slowly turning into a mess.”

Calls to management at BEC were not returned up to press time.

During his tenure as chairman, Mr Miller was involved in a series of controversial incidents, including public spats with BEC’s union leaders over overtime pay to employees and the revelation that he and his family-owned business owed BEC more than $100,000.

Union leaders repeatedly called for him to be fired during his time at the corporation.

The government began negotiations with PowerSecure International over the five-year BEC management contract in May, and signed a transition services agreement in late July.

GrassRoot 8 years, 3 months ago

non of his business anymore.

TruePeople 8 years, 3 months ago

get solar power

Well_mudda_take_sic 8 years, 3 months ago

The $22 million ($22,000,000) that Christie and Paul McWeeny effectively allowed Miller to steal from the Bank of The Bahamas could have been used by BEC to provide over 6,000 Bahamians with electricity for a full year assuming an average monthly light bill of $300. And Woman Smacker Miller has the temerity to pretend he is sympathetic to poor Bahamians who have had their power shut off by BEC! This man has no shame, much like Shameless Shane and our lamed-brain PM.

Honestman 8 years, 3 months ago

"THE Bahamas Electricity Corporation has reportedly “stopped payment plans” for overdue electricity accounts resulting in “hundreds” of persons being disconnected since November,"

Has Miller been disconnected?

realfreethinker 8 years, 3 months ago

Good question inquiring minds want to know

DisgustedBahamian 8 years, 3 months ago

Hell no that rule does not apply to him.

sansoucireader 8 years, 3 months ago

Maybe that's why he's making noise now: no more chance for a payment plan for him!

smallbiz 8 years, 3 months ago

Question:

BEC has a total installed capacity of 438MW in New Providence and the Family Islands (BEC Website)

One Solar Farm in the US can produce 550 MW and will be finished at a cost of 1.45 billion, which would be free Electricity for the Bahamas for the next 20 years (Wiki - Desert Sunlight Solar Farm).

Even though this is just the generation side of electricity it would mean: No fuel surcharge, no generator failures, no renting equipment at 50 million a year for someone to get kickbacks. Countries are building these farms at 500 MW, 750 MW, 1000 MW, 2000 MW. (Wiki - List of photovoltaic power stations).

I mean the thought of getting rid of the fuel surcharge might not be liked by our new Sir Frankie but hey, that would involve change and being proactive - not the most common in our land.

Thoughts? Arguments?

TruePeople 8 years, 3 months ago

Didn't the gov't squash the solar initiative here? - It's not that the sun isn't hot enough, it's not that that it's not the common-sense means to generating electricity in this country.... Must be something with those 50Mill$ per annum rent (aka kickbacks)

Thoughts? Arguments?

Will we never have solar power beyond private solar panel owners in this country until a foreigner comes in and does it for us?
Why do we always have to wait on foreigners for progress? Why are we so unable to accomplish things ourselves?!?!?!

GrassRoot 8 years, 3 months ago

TruePeople, there are a few persons in the Bahamas that have the ability and know how to do a project like that. There will always be a foreign partner (for warranty or financing) involved, but that has nothing to do with the Bahamas, this is same in Uruguay, Chile everywhere. Reality is that China is our best friend and we don't ask them to set this up for us. Really stupid China finances solar parks in Zambia, South Africa, Chile all over the planet. I have been part of three submissions to the Gov of the Bahamas of Solar and Renewable Generation Plants (2 for New Providence and 1 for Cat Island). All of them died on the table of the responsible minister. I can only speculate about the reasons, but they have to do with how business gets done, lack of knowledge, and unwillingness to do business beyond the inner circles. All this would not happen if we had the FOIA. This is and must be the first priority for all upstanding Bahamians. Corruption backdoor deals, lack of competence, unclean submission concepts, hidden agendas, non-published regulations are killing the economy of this country.

Chucky 8 years, 3 months ago

Unfortunately it's not that simple. What you describe would give us power when the sun is shining. The batteries store power for use when the sun goes down cost a lot. Also, we'd likely need a 1 - 1.5 megawatts of solar cells, since we can only count on the sun for so many hours a day. I.e. if the plant generates 450 mw , when the sun shines that's great, but it also needs to generate double that amount for when the sun goes down.
Costs are likely 3 x what you suggest.
But I agree, in the long run, anything is better than BEC Perhaps a better way is for everyone to buy individual solar. i.e. $15,000.00 kit for each home, perhaps times 100,000 households = 1.5 billion. Then we can tear down the grid and fire all the useless BEC employees!

John 8 years, 3 months ago

There is now what is called 'extended solar power.' Rather than just using solar panels to generate electricity they use the panels during the day to generate electricity and at the same time to heat up large tanks filled with oil. The oil, when heated, creates additional electricity for several hours that can supply power during the night or during periods of no sun. The oil is only heated and not burned, so there is little pollution from these type plants.

ohdrap4 8 years, 3 months ago

they should disconnect. i can understand the small man, but big businesses and politicians owe too.

DisgustedBahamian 8 years, 3 months ago

What happened Leslie you scared your power bill is going to get cut off now?. It should have been cut off a longtime ago if those in charge treated everyone fairly. You should have been fined also.

Thumbelina242 8 years, 3 months ago

He's all smoke and mirrors people. This is about diverting attention so no one finds out his questionable management style while he was Chairman at BEC. What does or doesn't happen at BEC is none of his business anymore. He just needs to pay his light bill like the rest of us. Hahaha....potcake barking cuz lights out for him

stislez 8 years, 3 months ago

No we should nail our damn self to the cross for allowing these tings to happen to us. Why we keep voting for people time after time looking for a better outcome an it never change, that's insane. Now we bring in dese slave masters from USA and china an expect dem to care or have compassion. We so busy bringing our own people down, anyone who ain't Bahamian could come an take over anything. How could a US company run the Bahamas light company? Logically DAT makes no sense and shows how we run to other people to handle our problems, we never look in the mirror, always blaming and complaining.

John 8 years, 3 months ago

BAHAMIANS ARE TOO PASSIVE!!! Figure this : BEC's fuel bill has been reduced from over $1 billion annually to under $300 million due to the falling oil prices over the past 3 years. Our (yours and mine) electricity bills have remained basically unchanged and, in some cases, have increased due to warmer temperatures that cause us to burn more electricity. YET they claim that BEC is deep to its neck in debt, and still loosing money. So can they please tell us what is happening with this $700 windfall BEC should be realizing from fuel savings? They should have wiped out their $600 million debt in 1 year and accumulated enough to replace three engines after the second year. Yet they telling us to "take the bull$hit", passive Bahamians that they have to float bonds to pay the debt. Who t'ief the money? Who still t'iefin da money? Same with the price of gas. Why are we still paying almost $4.00 a gallon ? Gas in the US is on its way down to $1.00 a gallon! we are being hoodwinked and bamboozled to our graves because the cost of living is too high and the quality of living is too low.

Well_mudda_take_sic 8 years, 3 months ago

Notwithstanding the incredibly rapid and dramatic drop in gasoline prices throughout the USA that started in the early part of last year, our corrupt Christie-led PLP government has permitted Franky Wilson's FOCOL and Shell companies to keep the gasoline prices they charge Bahamian consumers at the gas station pump much higher for much longer than should have been (and still is) allowed. The price gouging of Bahamians by Franky's FOCOL and Shell companies resulted in FOCOL reporting a record profit of more than $20 million ($20,000,000) in its most recent annual financial statements. In his published Chairman's Report to FOCOL's shareholders, greedy Franky aka Snake tried to attribute his embarrassment of riches to all sorts of nonsense things. Of course our corrupt Christie-led PLP government continues to enjoy huge windfall gasoline tax profits on the outrageously high gasoline prices being charged by Shell, and Shell's competitors have also benefitted by piggy-backing on FOCOL and Shell's egregious price gouging tactics. One has to wonder just how much of the unjust riches reaped by Snake from Bahamians at the gas pump will work its way back to the PLP in the form of overly generous election campaign contributions! Same goes for the fuel Sir Snake has sold to BEC for years at outrageously inflated prices that Bahamians ultimately have had to bear in the form of exorbitant light bill fuel surcharges!! Only very recently has the fuel surcharge decreased even though the global price of oil has fallen like a stone since the very early part of 2015. Oh yes, and let's not forget the extortionist profits Sir Franky's companies have reaped from their local sales of aviation fuel. Yes indeed, Sir Snake has been laughing all the way to the bank while financially crippling the average poor Bahamian family!

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